Art and culture

The 1994 Olympic skiing champion Markus Wasmeier opened his own open-air museum in the Tegernsee Valley in 2007. He is the town of Schliersee’s most famous son.

Buttenheim in the Pegnitz Valley is nestled between foot and cycle paths at the gateway to the Franconian Switzerland uplands. Levi Strauss, the jeans’ pioneer, came from here.

The town of Massing is renowned for the Berta Hummel Museum and its open-air museum that explores the history of rural life in Lower Bavaria. In between orchards and fields, old farmyards provide an insight into farming life.

Two impressive cultural attractions in the town of Murnau am Staffelsee are the Münter House and the Castle Museum. Both display works by the artists of the ‘Blaue Reiter’, who were once active in the Murnau region.

The Sömmersdorf passion play, or Easter pageant, can look back on a long tradition, as the first passion play was performed here as early as 1933.

The German Aviation Pioneer Museum in Leutershausen commemorates the aviation pioneer Gustav Weißkopf. The museum is housed in the historic setting of the former Bavarian district court.

On display in the Campendonk Collection at Penzberg Museum are 300 oil paintings, watercolours and prints by the artist Heinrich Campendonk. It’s the largest collection of works by the expressionist artist worldwide.

Located on the shoreline of the picturesque Dreiburgensee close to the small town of Tittling is the Bavarian Forest Museum Village, one of the largest attractions in this holiday region.

The exciting Upper Palatinate Open-Air Museum close to Nabburg tells the story of local rural life over the past 300 years. Traditionally farmed fields and cobbled roads are a real throwback to the 19th century.

Located on the River Weiße Traun, close to Lake Chiemsee in South East Bavaria, is the Siegsdorf Natural History & Mammoth Museum.

Selb, the centre of the German porcelain industry, is home to Europe's largest specialist museum for porcelain – the Porzellanikon. The museum focuses on the production of porcelain, or "white gold".

The small town of Rödental is located north-east of Coburg. Rosenau Castle, an early and significant example of neo-Gothic architecture, lies in the middle of a picturesque landscape garden.

The village of Oberammergau is famous for its passion play. Ever since 1634, villagers have been performing the play in their theatre at ten-year intervals.

An unusual sight can be found on or rather in Schwandorf’s Weinberg hill: an underground rock-cut cellar labyrinth with vaults up to three storeys high.

Schweinfurt, often called the ‘City of Industry and Art’, has been fashioned by industry like hardly any other town in Germany. The Industry Museum is home to a wide range of technical devices.