Routes covering country: Germany

Europe by Rail: The Definitive Guide
In this rail journey from Nuremberg to Prague we take in spa towns and synagogues, make time for coffee and cake, and explore some deeply rural areas of Bohemia.
The rail journey from Hamburg to Budapest can be completed in a long day. The sole direct service between the two cities takes just under 14 hours for a journey of about 1,300 km.
Between Berlin and Lviv, Route 35 takes in two particularly fine Polish cities, Poznań and Kraków – both with magnificent central squares. Not to mention the capital Warsaw too.
In this journey for Europe by Rail, we travel east through the shatterzones of history, through territories where tyranny and violence shaped lives and landscapes. We start in Dresden and make our way through Wroclaw and Kraków to Zakopane.
Route 38 in Europe by Rail is a very useful fast hop south over the Alps from southern Germany to Italian sunshine. And it packs in an astonishing variety of scenery.
Lille and Cologne are two cities with very strong regional identities within their respective countries, but they could scarcely be more different. Lille is altogether more downbeat - and is radical while Cologne is conformist.
This is one of Europe’s classic rail journeys, as the route south from Cologne hugs the River Rhine and then, once past Koblenz, follows the dramatic Rhine Gorge upstream.
This is one big leap across Germany, west to east. A sleek ICE train leaves Cologne Hauptbahnhof (Hbf) hourly for the German capital and the journey takes about five hours.
You can cut off to the south of the main railways which link Hannover with Berlin to discover the glorious landscapes of the Harz Mountains, a region which boasts Europe’s finest network of narrow-gauge steam railways.
This long journey from Berlin to Bavaria and on across the Austrian border to Salzburg takes in some very fine German cities (including Leipzig, Weimar and Munich) and some decent countryside. It is one of two routes in this book which lead travellers from northern Germany to the Alps.
Most of the cities along Route 24 in Europe by Rail have developed through sea trade or their links with the sea, although none is really on an open coast. We’ll visit places shaped by the Hanseatic League and feel the sea breeze on this journey through four countries.