At the western edge of the old town of Munster, facing a broad square and backed by gardens, stands the last great baroque palace built in Westphalia. The Prince Bishops

Discover the Residenzschloss in Dresden, the royal castle of the Saxon rulers, home to the dazzling Green Vault treasury and the famous Procession of Princes.

In the Franconian city of Würzburg, on the northern edge of Bavaria, stands a palace that many consider the single most perfect expression of the Baroque age in Germany. The

Explore the Zwinger in Dresden, the dazzling baroque palace of Augustus the Strong, famous for its galleries, pavilions, porcelain carillon, and world-class museums.

On a bend of the river Ilm just outside Weimar stands a modest house that once hosted the brightest minds of German literature. Tiefurt House was the summer retreat of

A Renaissance moated castle built by Ulrich von Maltzahn in 1562, burnt to a shell under the GDR, bought back and rebuilt by his descendants, and now the summer home of a music festival. Ulrichshusen is a story of return.

Some castles impress you with their size, others with their beauty. The Wartburg does something rarer: it makes you feel that you are standing at one of the places where

In the narrow, wooded valley of the Muglitz river, a short drive south of Dresden, a castle palace clings to a rocky spur in a way that seems to defy

In the heart of Weimar, the small Thuringian city that became the capital of German classical culture, stands the residence of the dukes of Saxe Weimar. The City Palace was

At the heart of Europe, the Germans gave the world Bach, Kant, and Einstein, fell into the abyss of Nazism, and rebuilt themselves as a democracy that confronts its history. An honest, in-depth portrait.