Best of Germany 9 days/ 8 nights

Nine days on a single north-to-south line: Berlin, Dresden, Nuremberg, Munich. Four cities that between them hold the divided capital, the baroque residence of Saxony, the imperial city of the Middle Ages and the Bavarian court – and no doubling back. This is the itinerary to reach for when a client wants Germany rather than one corner of it and has a little over a week to give it.

Berlin and Dresden

Berlin opens the trip because it takes the longest to explain. Your clients see the Brandenburg Gate and Unter den Linden, the Reichstag with its glass dome, and Museum Island, where five collections sit on one sandbank in the Spree. The harder material – the Wall memorial on Bernauer Strasse and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe – is handled by a guide who knows how to give it weight without turning the day into a lecture. Dresden then supplies the contrast: the Frauenkirche rebuilt from its own numbered rubble, the Zwinger and its old-master gallery, and the Bruehl Terrace above the Elbe.

Nuremberg and Munich

Nuremberg is the medieval leg. Inside the walls your clients walk from the Hauptmarkt up to the Kaiserburg, past the Duerer house and the timber-framed tanners’ lane, and the twentieth-century sites at the Dutzendteich are added or left out according to what the party wants. Munich closes the journey with Marienplatz and the Glockenspiel, the Viktualienmarkt, Nymphenburg Palace and the beer gardens, which is the softest possible landing after Berlin. Franconian food in Nuremberg and Bavarian food in Munich turn out to be one of the more memorable contrasts of the whole route.

How the nine days work

• Nine days, eight nights, private throughout, moving south in one direction with no repeated legs
• Four bases, with guided half or full days in each city and free time built in around them
• Local licensed guides in each city rather than one guide stretched across four very different histories
• Transfers between cities by private vehicle or by rail, depending on how your clients prefer to travel
• Museum, treasury and castle admissions quoted separately – several of them need advance booking

Who it suits, and when to run it

It suits first-time visitors who want breadth, history-minded travellers, and multi-generational parties, because every city on the route has short walking distances in the centre. It is less suited to clients who want countryside – the Alps and the Rhine are both off this line. April to October is the comfortable window; late November and December turn every one of the four cities into a Christmas markets stop, which is a different and equally strong version of the same route. Clients who want the eastern half in more depth should look at the five-day Eastern German Highlights tour, and those who want the south in more depth at the eight-day Munich and Bavaria journey. City background sits on the Berlin, Dresden and Munich destination pages.