Berlin's Tempelhofer Feld is a disused airport runway where locals now fly kites, picnic on hay bales and cycle along the tarmac. It's one of ten reader-nominated highlights in a Guardian Travel roundup celebrating holidays across Germany — and a reminder that the country's best experiences often cost little or nothing.
The practical centrepiece of the list is the Deutschlandticket: €63 buys a full month of regional buses, trains, trams and ferries nationwide (long-distance expresses excluded). The catch — you'll often need to change trains — is actually the selling point, as transfers pull you through towns you'd never otherwise see. The Deutsche Bahn website has a dedicated Deutschlandticket filter, and the Mopla app lets you buy one any time.
Among the destinations, Münster near the Dutch border gets top billing: an under-visited city of Italianate arcaded porticoes, gothic churches and a riverside botanical garden, plus the actual room where the Peace of Westphalia was signed in 1648. On the other side of the country, Görlitz near the Polish border packs 500 years of architecture into one cobbled old town — gothic to art nouveau — which is why film crews love it, and makes an easy detour from Dresden.
Active travellers get options too. Ebikers can ride gravel tracks from the immaculately preserved Black Forest town of Gengenbach up to the Moosturm tower and Lothar Monument for 360-degree views, with a sausage stop at the Naturfreundehaus Kornebene hut on the descent. On North Sea island Sylt, bike hire runs €8-10 a day and paths weave between dunes, surfers and beaches best enjoyed from a hooded Strandkorb chair. Thrill-seekers can climb Müngsten Bridge near Düsseldorf — at 107 metres, Germany's highest railway bridge and its self-styled answer to the Eiffel Tower — harnessed to a narrow beam across the top.
Kassel delivers the most theatrical free show: on water feature days at Unesco-listed Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe, 750,000 litres cascade unaided through baroque cascades and a fake Roman aqueduct, ending in a 52-metre fountain. Parking at the palace costs €8.50 per car including bus transport for up to seven people, and the 2.3km route downhill on foot ends where you parked.
There are urban pleasures too — Cologne's cocktail scene, led by world's-best-bars regular Seiberts alongside Little Link, Woods and Ona Mor — and quirks: drive your own car around the Nürburgring's Nordschleife circuit for €30-35, bracing to be overtaken by everything.
For travellers, the takeaway is simple: Germany rewards slow, cheap, train-and-bike exploration more than almost anywhere in Europe. Pick two or three of these spots, buy the monthly ticket, and let the connections decide your itinerary.
