German Favorites
August 10, 2007
Visitors exiting Cologne's main train station can often be caught craning their necks, jaws open, as they catch a glimpse of the city's cathedral, towering 157 meters (515 feet) above them. It's no wonder that 15.2 percent of participants in a recent survey selected the Gothic structure as their favorite tourist destination.
The capital city also scored well in the survey, which was conducted by the German Tourism Association and the Web site meinestadt.de. Four Berlin sites -- the Brandenburg Gate, the Television Tower, the Reichstag, and the city as a whole -- made the Top 15.
Dresden, Germany's eastern gem, also proved popular among Germans. The Church of Our Lady, which underwent renovation in 2005, took third place, while the Semper Oper placed 41st.
For many outside the country, the Oktoberfest is synonymous with Germany. But how did the Bavarian beer bash fair with the 3,000 German survey participants? It came in at 11 -- not bad, but perhaps not quite as well as it would have in a survey of non-Germans.
In the questionnaire, Germans selected these locations as their 10 favorite places to be a tourist:
1. Cologne Cathedral
2. Neuschwanstein Castle (Schwangau)
3. Church of Our Lady (Dresden)
4. Brandenburg Gate (Berlin)
5. Hamburg Port
6. Sanssouci Castle (Potsdam)
7. Berlin
8. Monument of the Battle of the Nations (Leipzig)
9. Television Tower (Berlin)
10. Suspended Railway (Wuppertal)
What would you have chosen? Click on the link below to send us an e-mail and let us know. If you'd like to share photos from your last trip to Germany, please send them to us at [email protected].