Germany tours

German historical tourism, cultural tours and travel information

Information

Reichstag The Federal Republic of Germany is one of the leading industrialized countries. Located in Central Europe, it is bordered by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea, to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic, to the south by Austria and Switzerland, and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Germany is a democratic parliamentary republic, made up of 16 states called Länder, which in certain spheres act independently of the federation.

German tourism and travel play and increasing role in 2006 due to the people interested in Football World Cup.

History

Historically consisting of several sovereign nations with their own history, culture as well as religion, Germany was unified as a nation state during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870/1871. The Federal Republic of Germany is a member state of the United Nations, NATO, the G8 and the G4 nations, and is a founding member of the European Union. It is the European Union's most populous and most economically powerful member state.

Tourism

German travel and tourism is key factor in economy. Germany is divided into sixteen states (in German called Länder, singular Land; commonly Bundesländer, singular Bundesland). It is further subdivided into 439 districts (Kreise) and cities (kreisfreie Städte) (2004).

The five largest cities in Germany are:

Berlin
Hamburg
Munich
Cologne

German tourism is increasing day-by-day due to the historical heritage and culture. Since reunification Germany has resumed its role as a major centre in the travels between Scandinavia in the north and the Mediterranean region in the south, as well as between the Atlantic west and the countries of central and eastern Europe.

The territory of Germany stretches from the high mountains of the Alps (highest point: the Zugspitze at 2,962 m / 9,718 ft) in the south to the shores of the North Sea (Nordsee) in the north-west and the Baltic Sea (Ostsee) in the north-east. In between are found the forested uplands of central Germany and the low-lying lands of northern Germany (lowest point: Neuendorfer/Wilstermarsch at 3.54 metres (11.6 ft) below sea level), traversed by some of Europe's major rivers such as the Rhine, Danube and Elbe.

Due to its central location, Germany shares borders with more European countries than any other country. Its neighbors are Denmark in the north, Poland and the Czech Republic in the east, Austria and Switzerland in the south, France and Luxembourg in the south-west and Belgium and the Netherlands in the north-west.

The greater part of Germany lies in the cool/temperate climatic zone in which humid westerly winds predominate.

The climate is affected among other things by the gulf stream, which arranges the climatic values unusually mild, in favor of European and German tourism.

Germany's contributions to the world's cultural heritage are numerous, and the country is often known as das Land der Dichter und Denker (the land of poets and thinkers). German literature can be traced back to the Middle Ages, in particular to such authors as Walther von der Vogelweide and Wolfram von Eschenbach, considered some of the most important poets of medieval Europe. The Nibelungenlied, whose author is not known, is also a major contribution to German literature. Theologian Luther, who translated the Bible into German, is widely credited for having set the basis for modern "High German" language. The mostly admired German poets and authors are without doubt Goethe, Hoffmann and Schiller. Other poets include Heinrich Heine, Rainer Maria Rilke and authors of the 20th century include Nobel Prize winners Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, Heinrich Böll, and Günter Grass. Other authors include Brecht and Enzensberger. Germany's influence on philosophy was significant as well, as exemplified by Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Feuerbach, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl, Hartmann, Jaspers, Heidegger, Gadamer and Habermas. In the field of sociology influential German thinkers were Simmel, Weber, Tönnies, Adorno and Luhmann.

Many historical figures, though not citizens of Germany in the modern sense, were important and influential figures in German culture, such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Kafka, Stefan Zweig and Nicolaus Copernicus.

Travel

Due to its central situation in Europe the volume of traffic, especially of goods transit, in Germany is very high. In the past decades, much of the goods shifted from rail to road transport, which led the Federal Government to introduce a motor toll for lorries in 2005. In addition, individual travel increased to an extent that on German roads, traffic densities are very high by international comparison. For the future, a further strong increase of traffic is expected. Thus, the 2003 transportation infrastructure plan scheduled an investment volume of approx. 150 billion euros for the 2001-2015 period, in order to deal with the expected increase in motorised passengers of around 20% (1997-2015) and goods of around 64% (1997-2005), for business travel and tourism.

High speed vehicular traffic has a long tradition in Germany tours, not only owing to the automobile industry, but also, because the first Autobahn, the AVUS, and the first automobile were built in Germany. Germany possesses one of the densest road systems. It covers 12,037 kilometres (7,479 mi) of "Autobahn" motorways and 41,386 kilometres (25,716 mi) of highways. In contrast to other European countries, German motorways have no blanket speed limit. However, signposted limits are in place on many dangerous or congested stretches, and where traffic noise or pollution poses a nuisance; some of these limits apply only at night or only in wet conditions. A vehicle is not permitted to use the Autobahn unless it can attain a speed of at least 60 km/h (37 mph).

Another way to travel is via rail. Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) is the major German railway infrastructure and service operator. For commuter and regional services, franchises of various size are granted by the individual states, though largely financed from the federal budget. Unsubsidised long-range service operators can compete freely all over the country, at least in theory. Actually, Deutsche Bahn holds a de facto monopoly on long-range services, while its market domination in the subsidised, franchise-based commuter train market and the freight market is being slowly eroded by several hundreds of comparatively small competing railways.

The InterCity Express or ICE is a type of high-speed train operated by DB in Germany and neighbouring countries, for example to Zürich, Switzerland or Vienna, Austria. ICE trains also serve Amsterdam (The Netherlands) as well as Liège and Brussels (Belgium). In spite of branch lines progressively being closed for at least the last seven decades, the railways network throughout Germany is still very extensive and provides excellent services in most areas. On regular lines, at least one train every two hours will call even in the smallest of villages. The quality of rail service differs from state to state, generally being better in the South. Some states and regions have been pioneering the reopening of closed branch lines (notably Rhineland-Palatinate) or the interconnection of tramway and overland rail networks (e.g. around Karlsruhe). Nearly all larger metropolitan areas are being served by an S-Bahn heavy rail metro system. A large proportion of towns feature underground and/or tram systems. Good urban and overland bus services are ubiquitous.

Football World Cup

The 2006 FIFA World Cup (officially titled 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany, sometimes referred to as the Football World Cup) finals are scheduled to take place in Germany between 9 June and 9 July 2006. Qualification for the tournament is now complete, with all 32 competing teams confirmed. The 2006 finals are the 18th to be contested.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Germany".