Home to Charlemagne’s Cathedral, the town of Aachen, Germany is approximately 20 miles east of Maastricht and makes for a nice day trip. The cathedral, with its octagonal chapel and treasury, is one of the oldest churches in the country—and it is both the first cathedral in northern Europe and Germany's first UNESCO World Heritage Site. For history buffs, it holds the relics of Charlemagne and William the Conqueror.

Climbing the 500-plus steps to the top of this tower, which rises above St. Peter's church in central Munich, is a great way to get the lay of the land from above or to work off a hearty lunch.

The Berlin Wall Memorial was completed in the summer of 2011, the 50-year anniversary of the building of the wall in 1961. It’s an incredibly well-conceived exhibition and a good spot to gain an overview of what the wall was, how it worked and what it did to the psyche of a people. The stretch of Bernauer Strasse where it is located was one of the places where the border actually ran through the buildings, making for daring escapes into the west through the windows (before they were boarded up). A piece of original wall can still be seen here with a recreated “death strip,” i.e. the no-man’s land area overseen by guards, dogs, flood lights and trip wires.

Many of the most fascinating documents of the time, including a disturbingly cheerful pop song composed for the erection of the wall, are in German, but the black-and-white footage of scenes from that time need no translation, nor does the powerful landscape outside. A rust-colored memorial shows the faces of the men and women who died while trying to escape. They include one of the first victims Peter Fechter, the 18-year-old who was shot in the no man’s land zone and bled to death as western and eastern guards (unable and unwilling, respectively, to act) stood by. The last victim of the wall was killed in August 1989, just a few months before the hated Cold War barrier finally came crashing down.

Indagare members should contact Indagare for an introduction to our favorite guide on the Berlin Wall and its history. One of our tours includes two guides—one who grew up in the East with one who grew up in the West—to give both sides of the history in person.

Thanks to polar bear Knut, the Berlin zoo is now world renowned. It’s a massive place with some 17,000 animals. It’s a lovely place to tour with kids, especially on a sunny day when you can meander to Café am Neuen See, just beyond the ostrich cages. The large indoor aquarium is a lifesaver on a rainy day.

The rich underground world of Berlin can be explored on the special guided tours (some in English) with this non-profit organization. Each offers a fascinating glimpse into a world normally hidden to the public, making this underground exploration particularly fascinating for hard-to-entertain tweens or teens. You can see bunkers and anti-aircraft fortresses from World War Two, as well as raid shelters, ghost subway stations and escape tunnels from the Cold War. There are several tours to choose from (Dark Worlds, Subways-Bunkers-Cold War, and Breaching the Berlin Wall among the most exciting), and all must be booked well in advance.

Located in a futuristic-looking building, the BMW Museum showcases the manufacturing history of the German car brand. Car aficionados will love it here; the museum is one of the most-visited sights in Munich. Tours of the Munich plant (adjacent) can also be organized.

For an escape from Berlin’s über-modern present, spend a few hours wandering around Schloss Charlottenburg. Built in the late 1600s by the future King Frederick I as a country retreat for his wife, Sophia Charlotte, the palace is the largest existing one in Berlin. It’s surrounded by lovely gardens, and the restaurant in the orangery is an ideal spot for a cup of coffee or a glass of local beer.

A real insider tip is the fact that the small, uber-comfortable movie theater in the Bayerischer Hof has a regular film program and tickets can be booked online. You can order drinks at Falk’s Bar across the way and enjoy seeing films in original language while nestled in an overstuffed chair. A great option when the weather is not great.

If you drive just 30 minutes south of Munich, the landscape quickly becomes rural. An hour further and you're in midst of the Bavarian Alps, whose piece-de-resistance, the Zugspitze, rises to a proud 9,718 feet in the Wetterstein mountain range. The towns that are located at its foot are some of southern Germany's quaintest: Garmisch-Partenkirchen might be the most famous but it gets crowded and overrun with visitors, so head to the smaller Mittenwald and/or Krün instead.

If you can combine touring in this area with a stay at Schloss Elmau, an ideal day's itinerary would include: a hearty breakfast at Elmau, followed by a hike towards Mittenwald right from the foot of the castle. It's a beautiful, two-hour walk through stunning nature, passing two lakes: the Ferchensee and the Lautersee. At the latter, a number of hostelries and restaurants beckon with great terraces and hearty menus.

Have lunch at the Lautersee Alm but skip dessert and coffee, as you will have this in the quaint town of Mittenwald. Continue your hike – from the Lautersee, it's another 30 minutes until you reach the town. Head to the Obermarkt Café (Obermarkt 24), housed in a building whose beautifully painted façade is a showstopper. Or indulge in an authentic Italian gelato at Eiscafé Venezia (Obermarkt 36). There are a number of quaint shops in Mittenwald, so it's a fun place to wander.

If you're still up for more hiking, the town of Krün is another two hours north. (If you're staying at Elmau, a pick-up can also be arranged.) For a special meal, book a table at the Post Krün, one of southern Germany's most renowned restaurants for traditional Bavarian cuisine.

There are many other incredible hikes in this area; the lovely concierge team at Schloss Elmau can help craft itineraries for any fitness level.

This national park, a two-hour drive from Munich, offers scenic vistas and challenging hiking. From here, you can also drive to the Koenigssee, a deep glacial lake that is quite scenic and near the famous Watzmann, one of the region’s most impressive (and Germany’s third-largest) mountains.

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Home to one of Europe’s most famous summer festivals, Bregenz is located in Austria on the eastern shores of Lake Constance, central Europe’s third-largest freshwater lake. The surrounding area is beautiful for hiking. Music aficionados lucky enough to score tickets to one of the operas performed in July and August will witness one of the world’s most unique set-ups thanks to the stage that floats in the lake (it was made famous in Quantum of Solace, the 22nd James Bond film.)

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It's an emotionally challenging day trip but visiting the memorial site of this former concentration camp is an important and powerful addition to a Munich itinerary. The fact that it is located only a thirty-minute drive northwest of Munich is a chilling testament of the Nazi fear machine – opened in 1933 just a few weeks after Hitler was appointed chancellor, Dachau was the Nazis' first concentration camp. It originally held political prisoners but after 1938, its primary population extended to Jews and prisoners of war, predominately from Poland. The exhibitions are obviously sobering — it's not recommended to bring children under the age of 12 — but even more poignant is the fact that you're on the actual grounds where these atrocities happened.

Indagare Tip: Take your time and don't follow this up with the next itinerary must-see. After a visit here, you might want to give yourself some time to walk, think and write down some impressions.

Visiting this quaint town, with its frescoed buildings, feels like stepping back in time. Take the Zugspitzbahn to ascent to Germany’s highest peak: the Zugspitze.

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A favorite local escape, Lake Starnberg is just a 45-minute drive away from the city (during summer weekends, the traffic is as bad as that to the Hamptons, so avoid leaving on a Friday afternoon). For a local taste, head to Midgardhaus Zum Häring (www.haering-wirtschaft.de), in the village of Tutzing, which is a wonderful lakeside restaurant and beer garden.

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This fantasy castle (the Disney logo is based on its outline) draws the expected crowds. The history behind the palace is as dramatic as its Romanesque Revival towers: built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria in part as an homage to the musical works of Richard Wagner, the palace is a fascinating architectural expression of the king’s artistic, volatile, egotistical and emotional mind. Ludwig’s own time at his dream castle was limited; he only lived there for five months before he mysteriously drowned close to shore in Lake Starnberg. Neuschwanstein is one of Germany’s top five attractions; it’s about a two-hour drive from Munich. Those with less time and not eager to battle the crowds should also consider visiting Schloss Herrenchiemsee.

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This former trade route, now cheesily dubbed Romantische Strasse, kicks off in Würzburg and snakes toward Füssen (home to Neuschwanstein), past some of Germany’s most picturesque towns, castles and sweeping landscapes. It’s often more of a highway than a romantic route, however, so it’s best to come up with an itinerary of specific castles and medieval towns, rather than driving the whole route.

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Those turned off by the crowds of Schloss Neuschwanstein and without the time to embark on the Romantic Route with its many castles, can take the one-hour drive to this chateaux right on Lake Chiemsee. Built as a German answer to Versailles, it is famous for its sprawling formal gardens and such decorative details as a massive chandelier made of Meissen porcelain, a hall of mirrors and opulent interiors.

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The largest remaining section of the Berlin Wall, the East Side Gallery runs along the banks of the Spree River for more than a half a mile. It features murals—including one with the Brezhnev/Honecker kiss—by more than 100 international artists. Located near Ostbahnhof.

The former Jewish Girls’ School in Berlin’s Mitte neighborhood is a must-stop address for art connoisseurs and foodies. Under its roof can be found two of the most respected commercial galleries, the contemporary Eigen + Art and photography-focused Camera Work, as well as the The Kennedys Museum, and three restaurants: delicatessen Mogg and The Kosher Classroom.

The building is a place with a haunted past and current tenants have done a good job of memorializing. Its industrial style architecture (an example of the “New Objectivity” genre) has a warehouse type feel with thick walls, huge plate-glass windows and an imposing brick facade. The history of the space, too, inspires reverence. In 1933 its student body more than doubled after the Fascist Regime’s law of segregation kicked children out of secular schools. Starting in 1938, every day more desks were empty as Jewish families were ripped from their homes and sent to concentration camps. In 1942, the school, along with all Jewish schools in Europe were closed. For the remainder of World War II, the building acted as a military hospital for the Nazi party.

In 1950 the Bavarian writer Bertolt Brecht, a proclaimed communist, reopened the school in the heart of the Soviet-controlled East Berlin. In 1996 the building was abandoned and remained empty until 2009 when the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany ruled that the property be reinstated to the Jewish Community.

It seems silly to pick a single gallery out of Berlin’s trove of contemporary art, but Eigen+Art is an important one in the cultural firmament. It’s run by Gerd Harry Lybke, an early proponent of the now-famous Neue Leipziger Schule, the art institution out of which emerged such talents as Neo Rauch and Tim Eitel (both represented by Eigen + Art). The branch on Auguststrasse, near Clärchen’s Ballhaus and the Hackesche Höfe, is always worth stopping by. Besides the established names, Eigen + Art also has some young, emerging artists in its stable. Closed Sunday and Monday.

Opened in early 2017 and costing nearly $1 billion, this concert hall is a contemporary marvel and the city’s top attraction. Its design (by renowned architect duo Herzog and de Meuron) is almost a metaphor for the city's mix of old and new: the brick base, formerly one of Hamburg’s port warehouses, is capped by a mirrored, sail-shaped roof, harkening to Hamburg’s maritime significance. Inside is a restaurant, shop, hotel and two concert halls. The main concert hall was designed for acoustic maximization and is an extraordinary space with high-tech design elements.

The city’s large green playground is bigger than Central Park and encompasses a lake, large meadows and such attractions as a Japanese teahouse and a Chinese pagoda (modeled after the Great Pagoda found in London’s Royal Botanic Gardens). A whimsical spot to find is the Eisbach junction. It takes some German engineering to surf in land-locked Bavaria. But endless rides are possible on the Eisbach wave, a man-made, standing curl in the middle of a narrow artificial stream that runs through the Englischer Garten. It has drawn both international river surfers—even in winter—and gawking crowds since soon after the wave was created in 2000. The Eisbach wave is located at the southern edge of the English Garden park, near the Haus der Kunst art museum. There are also several beer gardens in the Englischer Garten, including the one at the Seehaus, which is one of the best spots in the city for lunch or an afternoon beer with beautiful views.

An important contemporary-art institution in Berlin is the Hamburger Bahnhof. Built in 1845 as a train station, it is now home to a permanent Joseph Beuys exhibition and the Friedrich Christian Flick collection, which the controversial art patron lent the gallery in 2004. It includes masterworks from Sol LeWitt, Robert Ryman, Dan Graham, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter. The museum’s café, overseen by notable chef Sarah Wiener, is one of the city’s insider secrets.

A few months before his death in 2004, renowned fashion photographer and Berlin native Helmut Newton donated 1,000 of his images to the Helmut Newton Foundation. It’s now a museum that shows his work, in addition to select temporary exhibits.

Use the perks of being an Indagare member by setting up a strategic itinerary with our specialists who can offer incredible historic walking tours, art tours of the classic and contemporary scenes (including entrée to some of Germany’s most prominent private art collections), and access to Berlin’s cool culinary and clubbing scenes. They can recommend everything from private venues for parties or top biking guides (and this is a good biking city) or the best activities and guides for kids.

Particularly buzzing East Berlin is not easily navigated; it stretches for miles and is full of surprises. One of our specialist guides will show you its secrets, from underground restaurants to riverside lounges. He is a young expat, who has created lively adventures around food, art and the creative process. One excursion may involve a meal in which each course of a four- to five-course meal is served at a different restaurant; in another you can visit artists in their homes or head out with night owls for club hopping at underground hot spots. It’s an excellent way to tour East Berlin’s trendiest areas.

Contact our Bookings Team for details.

Indagare can connect Beatles fanatics with the top Beatles tour specialist in the city, who will steer you through their old stomping grounds in the St Pauli district, from the apartment where they first lived to the site of one of their album covers to the famous Kaiserkeller music club where they rose to stardom.