With almost 40 million foreign overnight guests every year, Germany is one of the seven most visited countries in the world. There are 6,135 museums, 366 theatres, 34 leisure and adventure parks, 45,000 tennis courts, 648 golf courses, 190,000 km of hiking trails, 40,000 kilometres of long-distance cycle paths as well as holiday and theme routes available for use in tourism.
Business and congress tourism is of outstanding importance; Germany is the most important international trade fair location with several world-leading trade fairs: Caravan Salon Düsseldorf, CMT Stuttgart, etc. The Internationale Tourism-Börse Berlin is the world's leading tourism trade fair. Germany also has the highest density of festivals like Wacken, Rock am Ring,
Outstanding sights: Sanssouci Castle - Brandenburg Gate - Cologne Cathedral - Saxon Switzerland National Park - Wadden Sea - Hamburg Harbor - Brocken - Old Town of Hameln - Externsteine - Wartburg - Neuschwanstein Castle - Zugspitze near Garmisch-Partenkirchen - Rothenburg ob der Tauber - Königsee in Berchtesgadener Land - Old town of Bamberg - Imperial castle in Nuremberg - Mainau Island in Lake Constance - Lichtenstein Castle - Meersburg - Ulm Minster - etc.
Once again we passed into Cochem on the Mosel river, after a short stopover at the Nordschleife of Nürburgring, where we first rested a little while enjoying a delicious ice cream in one of the many waterfront cafes.
The legendary Nordschleife of the Nürburgring was classified as too unsafe for the Formula 1 in the 80s - probably the most negative example was the accident of Niki Lauda in the year 1976 - which is why the Formula 1 from 1977 onward just took place at the Hockenheimring.
After an eventful day with many great conversations and hundreds of historic motorcycles due to the racing event organized and named the Cologne Course on the Grand Prix circuit of the Nürburgring, combined with lot of memories of our own motorcycle experiences, it was time for the return trip to Essen.
We were traveling in Dresden again and as the opening picture clearly indicates: it wasn't a really nice day that invited us to linger on the Elbe promenade.
The Panometer of Dresden, where the panoramic picture “Amazon” by Yadegar Asisi will be shown from January 27, 2024, is a former gas container or gas tank that was once used to store all kinds of gases and in particular to store fuel gases such as town gas and natural gas.
Following an invitation from Claudia and Heinrich, we drove to the previously completely unknown town of Kamenz, where a first surprise awaited us at the entrance to the town.
After our interesting visit to the Meissen Porcelain Manufactory, there was only about 50 kilometers to go to Dresden, which we covered on the federal highway 6, which ran parallel to the Elbe.
After our extensive visit to the Leipzig Zoo, the large panorama picture "Amazonia" by Asisi in the Panometer, Detlef led us on a short tour of Leipzig city center, which we started directly at the Gewandhaus, which is world-famous for the Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Thomanerchor.
After our arrival in Halle in the evening, we and Detlef had set out a supporting program for the next few days, which also included a visit to the zoo in Leipzig.
After our visit to the Leipzig Zoological Garden, Detlef took us to the panometer for the picture composition "Rainforest".
On the occasion of the citizens' festival for German Unity Day, we visited the Petersberg Citadel in the city centre of Erfurt for the first time, arranged in a star shape on the Petersberg and rising above Erfurt's old town.
The waterworks in Gotha is an outstanding example of historical engineering art and an important landmark of the Thuringian city of Gotha.
A cloudy, rainy day had brought us back to Weimar in the past few days, “best” weather to visit the still relatively new Bauhaus Museum, which was opened to the public on April 5, 2019.
We were actually only supposed to go to the evening concert of the Italian band “Strange Kind Of Women” in the Volkshaus Meiningen, but then we arrived in Meiningen in time enough to at least make a short visit to the Christmas market there.
After our visit to the “Roman House” in the park on the Ilm, Georg Muche's single-family house from Bauhaus architecture, which was hyper-modern for the time, was of course at the top of our list of interests.
Anyone who, like us, initially thinks that in Apolda there are only bluebells, wool cabbage and perhaps the best Thuringian bratwurst, is at least partially factually wrong, but thematically exactly right for the greenery in the city.
Again and again, our visits to the city of Weimar also lead to the large park that stretches along the Ilm almost right through the city.
Not that anyone thinks that the ancient Romans discovered Weimar or even founded it, but the "Roman House", a building on the edge of the park on the Ilm in Weimar, is always worth a visit.
Now that we wanted to spend a few days in Schleiz because of the 100th anniversary of the Schleizer Dreieck in the region, it was clear that we wanted to explore Schleiz itself for at least a few hours.
After our so much impressing tour through the former Buchenwald concentration camp close to the city entry of the independent city of Weimar, which had proved to be much more time-consuming than planned, we first needed to talk, so that we were able to exchange first impressions and ideas.