Germany Travel Guide: Things to Do, Cities, Time Zone and Getting Around

• Currency: the euro (€). If you wonder what Germany's currency is called and what came before it: the euro has been in use since 2002; before that Germany used the Deutsche Mark.
• Language: the official language is German. Greetings, thank yous and restaurant phrases with pronunciation are in our German phrases  guide.
• Internet: how an eSIM works abroad is explained in our eSIM guide .

German clocks follow Central European Time, CET (UTC+1), in winter and switch to CEST (UTC+2) in summer; as across the EU, they change on the last Sunday of March and the last Sunday of October.

The whole country is in one time zone, so Cologne, Düsseldorf, Berlin and Munich always show the same time. For most of the year Germany is one hour ahead of London and six hours ahead of New York. We travelled in November, on winter time (CET).

Where is Germany? In Central Europe, with a coast on the North Sea and the Baltic Sea in the north and nine neighbours: Denmark, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. The four cities we visited are in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's western state, close to the Dutch and Belgian borders.

• Cologne: on the Rhine, known above all for its cathedral; about half an hour from Düsseldorf by train. See our things to do in Cologne  guide, Cologne Cathedral , the Cologne Christmas market  and where to stay in Cologne .
• Düsseldorf: the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia and our base; we saw the city in two days.
• Dortmund: in the east of the Ruhr; for the Christmas market a 45 metre Christmas tree goes up on Hansaplatz. The fastest train from Düsseldorf takes 45 minutes.
• Essen: in the middle of the Ruhr; the former Zollverein coal mine is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The fastest train from Düsseldorf takes 22 minutes.

For these western cities the closest airports are Düsseldorf (DUS) and Cologne Bonn (CGN); Frankfurt is Germany's largest hub, where many long haul flights land. We flew into Düsseldorf and took the train from the airport to the main station.

Regional trains link the cities. We bought the Deutschlandticket: a monthly subscription bought in an app on your phone, valid on all local and regional public transport in Germany; long distance trains such as ICE and IC are not included. In 2026 it costs €63 a month (source VRR, October 2026).

The capital of Germany is Berlin. Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund and Essen are in the west of the country, in North Rhine-Westphalia; the capital of that state is Düsseldorf, the city where we stayed four nights. We did not go to Berlin on this trip.

A German visa is simply a Schengen visa, because Germany belongs to the Schengen area; short stays are capped at 90 days in any 180 day period. Whether you need a visa at all depends on your passport.

The general rules are on our Schengen visa  page; the official list of who needs a visa, and where to apply, is on the Federal Foreign Office visa pages  (last checked 30 Oct 2026).