Germany has the best rail network in Europe for a multi-city trip. The ICE (InterCity Express) high-speed trains connect Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfurt, and Dresden with frequency and efficiency that makes flying not just unnecessary but slower. Factor in airport time on both ends, and a two-hour ICE journey beats a one-hour flight every time.
Here is the ten-day route I recommend, with the booking strategy that keeps costs reasonable.
The Route: Munich → Berlin → Hamburg → Cologne → Dresden → Munich
This circular route keeps backtracking to a minimum, builds from tradition to edge to maritime to medieval, and ends where it began.
Days 1–2: Munich
Start in Munich. It takes a while to find your footing in Germany’s most tourist-visited city, and two days here sets the tone for the trip.
Day 1: Marienplatz and the Neues Rathaus Glockenspiel (yes, do it — it is kitsch but it is also genuinely fun). Then walk through the Viktualienmarkt, Munich’s daily outdoor food market, for a lunch of Weisswurst, a pretzel, and a Maß of local beer. Afternoon at the Deutsches Museum — the world’s largest science and technology museum, which even technophobes find fascinating. Evening in a beer garden in the English Garden.
Day 2: The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site is 30 minutes by S-Bahn from central Munich. It is confronting and essential. The site is free; guided tours are €4.50. In the afternoon, the Alte Pinakothek art museum has one of the finest collections of Old Masters in Europe (€7). Evening: Hofbräuhaus once, just to say you did it — but drink your actual beer at Augustiner-Keller, which the locals prefer.
Days 3–5: Berlin (ICE: ~4.5 hrs, €29.90–€79)
Berlin is not a weekend city — it rewards at least three days and punishes anyone who tries to rush it.
Day 3: Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust Memorial (free, and one of the most affecting memorials in the world — do not skip it). Reichstag dome (book free timed tickets at bundestag.de weeks ahead). Walk along the East Side Gallery, the longest surviving section of the Berlin Wall. Evening in Kreuzberg.
Day 4: Museum Island — one of UNESCO’s most concentrated collections of antiquities, with the Pergamon Museum, the Neues Museum (Nefertiti bust), and three others. The Pergamon alone justifies a full morning. Buy a Museum Island day pass (€29). Afternoon at Checkpoint Charlie for the historical context (the museum is tourist-oriented, but the site matters). Evening: Currywurst from Curry 36 in Kreuzberg, then whatever the night holds in Mitte or Prenzlauer Berg.
Day 5: Charlottenburg Palace (€17 for the palace interior, free to walk the grounds). Afternoon: KaDeWe food hall on Tauentzienstrasse — seven floors of luxury retail but the food hall is genuinely extraordinary. Wander Savignyplatz. An early train or flight out is not recommended for Berlin — it has a way of extending evenings significantly.
Days 6–7: Hamburg (ICE: ~1.5 hrs from Berlin, €29.90–€59)
Hamburg is Germany’s surprise — the city most visitors have never prioritised and most return to repeatedly. It is a port city in the best sense: rough-edged, self-confident, and full of excellent food and music.
Day 6: The Speicherstadt warehouse district is a UNESCO World Heritage Site — red-brick, canal-laced, built in the 1880s to store goods in bond without paying customs duty. The warehouses now contain museums, design studios, and the extraordinary Miniatur Wunderland (the world’s largest model railway, genuinely worth the €20 and 2-hour queue). Lunch at the nearby Fischmarkt (Sunday mornings only, but the spirit lives in the surrounding fish restaurants daily). Walk the HafenCity development for the contrast.
Day 7: The Reeperbahn is Hamburg’s legendary entertainment district — less seedy now than its Beatles-era reputation, but the history (the Beatles played 270 nights here) is real and a walking tour covers it well. Afternoon at the Hamburger Kunsthalle (excellent collection of German Romanticism, €14). Evening: the harbour in the blue hour, then dinner in the Schanzenviertel neighbourhood.
Days 8–9: Cologne (ICE: ~4 hrs from Hamburg, €39.90–€79)
Cologne (Köln) is compact enough to absorb in two focused days, and the Dom alone is worth the stop.
Day 8: The Kölner Dom is the only correct starting point. Germany’s most visited landmark took 632 years to complete and remains one of the finest Gothic structures in the world. Climb the south tower (€6, 533 steps) for panoramic views over the Rhine. Inside, the Shrine of the Three Magi and the medieval stained glass. Afternoon: Museum Ludwig for the best Picasso collection outside Spain (€13). Evening: Kölsch beer at a traditional Brauhaus — Früh am Dom or Gaffel am Dom are the classics. Kölsch is served in 0.2L glasses by perpetually disapproving waiters (Köbe) who replace your glass without being asked until you put your beer mat on top.
Day 9: Day trip to the Rhine Valley — take the regional train south to Koblenz (1 hour) and either take a river cruise back upstream or hop off at Bacharach for the castle and the wine. The UNESCO-listed stretch between Koblenz and Bingen has 40 castles in 65 kilometres. Alternatively, a morning at the Chocolate Museum (Schokoladenmuseum, €13.50) followed by the Altstadt’s narrow lanes.
Day 10: Dresden (ICE to Frankfurt then regional, or direct via Leipzig ~3 hrs, €39–€79)
Dresden is Germany’s most beautiful city and the most emotionally resonant. The baroque reconstruction after the WWII firebombing — particularly the Frauenkirche, rebuilt from catalogued rubble between 1994 and 2005 — is one of the great acts of cultural renewal in modern history.
Day 10: The Zwinger Palace’s Alte Meister museum (Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, €14). The rebuilt Frauenkirche interior and the viewing platform (€8). Brühlsche Terrasse (the “Balcony of Europe”) for views over the Elbe. Neustadt district across the river for independent cafés and the most interesting street art in east Germany. Night train back to Munich (or fly home from Dresden Airport).
ICE Booking Strategy
Book 90 days ahead for Sparpreis fares. Deutsche Bahn’s cheapest advance tickets start at €17.90 for most routes and are non-refundable but sometimes changeable for a fee.
The Deutschlandticket (€49/month) covers all regional trains (not ICE) — useful for day trips to the Rhine Valley or surrounding areas, and if you take enough regional trains, it pays for itself.
Use the DB app rather than the website — better interface, faster checkout, stores your tickets neatly.
Seat reservations (€5.90 per journey) are optional on most ICE routes but worth it on busy Friday afternoon trains between major cities.
Total Journey Cost Estimate
Five ICE tickets booked 90 days ahead: approximately €180–220 total for the five legs outlined. Add €49 for a Deutschlandticket if you plan day trips on regional routes.
Compare this to five domestic flights: €300–500 with luggage, plus 4+ hours per journey in airport overhead. The train is better on every metric except raw speed — and on every route in this itinerary, that speed advantage disappears entirely once you factor in the airports.