German City Trips in 2025

Fascinating Moments in Germany

  Every year, I try to broaden my horizons by visiting new stunning places to explore the beauties of Germany. It's also amazing to come back to cities, I've been before, to immerse myself in the atmosphere of the city in a new season - like feeling the spring with all its beautiful blooming flowers in Karlsruhe and Konstanz. I don't always need to be far away from home. I just want to be in beautiful places and cities to keep having exciting adventures.

  This year, the first city trip was a one-day journey to Karlsruhe. After we spent some time in Offenburg to enjoy the pre-Easter atmosphere on the weekend market, we finally took the train to Karlsruhe. For me, it was the second time visiting Karlsruhe after strolling through the city centre and Durlach in freezing temperatures last year in January. After we had strengthened ourselves in the Ettli Café with a delicious blueberry tiramisu and coffee, we continued our walk through the central market square with the pyramid until we reached the Karlsruhe Castle Garden. Here, we spent quite a while and enjoyed the various gardens before we found ourselves in a sea of flowers with magnificent colours and beautiful sunshine in the botanical garden. We enjoyed the moment a lot and decided to take it easy and reduce our plan for the day, since we planned to visit many more places this day. Afterwards, we only made it to the Günther-Klotz-Anlage, another beautiful area to relax with a small hill from which we could admire the entire park. We walked through the park and enjoyed the view of the lake, the forest and many cute ducks. There was also a possibility to rent a pedal boat, which we have planned for our next visit in Karlsruhe, combined with a little picnic. All in all, it was a wonderful trip to the Spring paradise of Karlsruhe.

  Two weeks after our weekend trip to Amsterdam, we already had the next highlight in our minds - a visit of the flower island of Mainau, the third-largest island in Lake Constance, very close to the actual city of Konstanz. We set off early in the morning from Freiburg to spend as much time as possible on the island, and after a rather long journey by train and bus, we finally reached the island's entrance. Passing the Swedish Cross, which has adorned the shoreline between Mainau and the mainland for several centuries and dates back to the Swedish rule during the Thirty Years' War, we arrived on the island and immediately felt like we were in a flower paradise. Unlike Keukenhof, which stands out primarily for its wide variety of different tulips, Mainau is unique for its diversity and biodiversity, with many spectacular, different gardens, each of which was stunningly beautiful. After a short walk through the herb garden to the flower animals and the Mainau farm with a petting zoo, we arrived at the beautiful Dahlia Garden, where in spring, daffodils, Iceland poppies, forget-me-nots and tulips can be admired in the colourful sea of blossoms. The splendor of colour and the panoramic view of Lake Constance made this section to a unique experience. Just a few steps further, we spotted the Italian Flower Water Staircase, which elegantly connects the Mediterranean Terraces with the lower shore area and, together with the Mediterrean Terraces, creates a fantastic holiday atmosphere. The east side of Mainau shone in another splendor of colours, full of rhododendron bushes, a flowerbed shaped like Lake Constance and a flower butterfly with a view of the rhododendron garden. From here, we continued slightly uphill to the architectural heart of the island, the Mainau Castle with the adjacent Palm House and the romantic floral magic of the Italian Rose Garden. In the exotic Palm House, with its tropical atmosphere, we were able to snag one of the tables in the Schlosscafé for a short break with coffee and cake - and the cakes were excellent. After our short break, we were once again able to immerse ourselves in a whole new world full of impressive giant trees like the Metasequoia. The contrast between this avenue of dawn redwoods and the colourful gardens on the southern side of the island was also very exciting to see and culminated in another highlight - the Butterfly House with up to 120 different species of butterflies from the tropical regions of South and Central America, Africa and Asia. Afterwards, we walked back to the Dahlia Garden to enjoy the explosion of colours in the sea of flowers once more before starting to walk back to catch the bus in time to not return too late to Freiburg.     

  On the first weekend of July, I spontaneously decided to take a trip to Kaiserslautern. Although it was a four-hour train ride, I was particularly excited about the idea of the Tanabata Festival in the Japanese Garden, so I set off early in the morning. After several train changes, I arrived in Kaiserslautern and shortly after leaving the train station, I passed the Löwenburg Roundabout, which is unofficially known as the Elf-Freunde-Kreisel. In 2004, eleven concrete football players were placed there in preparation for the upcomming Football World Cup, and today they symbolically represent the city's football tradition. Another World Cup memento can be found in downtown Kaiserslautern in the form of the World Cup Sculpture, which is shaped like a football and commemorates the 2006 tournament. After another short walk, I reached the Pfalzgrafensaal, the remaining part of the former medieval Casimir Castle, as well as St. Martin's Square, which used to serve as marketplace. Since the city's annual festival was also taking place that weekend, I followed the noise along the Steinstraße until I reached the Kaiser Fountain, which symbolically represents key aspects of Kaiserslautern's history. These include the city seal, a sewing machine from the Pfaff company, an engine from Opel, wheels and keys representing the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, and a football signed by Fritz Walter.

  I then met up with my Japanese friend Miko, who had traveled from Frankfurt especially for the Tanabata Festival. We had a coffee and tea together at the Kaffeerösterei before making our way to the Japanese Garden, which is one of the largest Japanese gardens in Europe. Unfortunately, the traditional Japanese tea ceremonies at the teahouse only take place on Sundays, but we were still delighted by the many Tanabata wishes already hanging on the trees. The walk through the Japanese Garden radiated a deep sense of peace and harmony through light and shadow, plants and stones, water and paths, giving me a momentary feeling of being in Asia. After writing our own wishes on our Tanzaku, we strolled through the garden again to find the perfect spot to hang them and spent some time listening to the sound of the waterfall while enjoying a long conversation. After grabbing some gyoza and cherry blossom iced tea at the kiosk, we walked back toward the train station together to begin our journey home.