Even in a nation as culturally rich as Germany, certain achievements stand out. These are the country’s most precious treasures, so special that they have been selected by the World Heritage Center of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to be included in its World Heritage List, thereby ensuring their survival for future generations.

Join us as we visit some of Germany’s most celebrated horticultural, architectural and artistic triumphs from two millennia of civilization, all of them resonant with far-reaching historical or cultural significance. Begin in Berlin’s Museuminsel (museum Island), tribute to over a century of innovations in modern museum design, and tour the world-famous Pergamon Museum, home to millennia-old Greek and Roman artistic masterpieces that exemplify the forms that Western art would return to again and again throughout the ages. Explore the incredible bounty of Potsdam’s parks and architectural masterworks from the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, quintessential examples of the very best that Europe had yet aspired to. In Wittenberg, wander through the homes of Germany’s great sixteenth-century religious reformers, and the castle church where Martin Luther ‘s posting of his revolutionary 95 Theses set off shock waves that would reverberate throughout the Western world for centuries to come. Travel to Dessau and tour the Bauhaus School, where Walter Gropius and his fellow masters wrought huge changes in the world’s concept of the relationship between form and function in architecture. In medieval Quedlinburg, get a sense of the skill, vision and faith required to create one of the world’s great masterpieces of Romanesque architecture using only the tools and materials available at the time. See how the Age of Enlightenment’s philosophy took tangible form in the villages, palaces and landscapes of the Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz. Experience the cultural ambience that drew such leading German intellectuals as Goethe, Schiller and Herder to gather and work in the small Thuringian town of Weimar. Visit Wartburg Castle, Martin Luther’s hideout during his exile, where he standardized the German language for all future generations with his translation of the New Testament.

These sites reflect the heights Western civilization has reached at various points in its history. Many of them have influenced the directions it would take in the future. Today, they rank high among Germany’s—and the world’s—most outstanding cultural wonders. Come experience them with us.