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Germany

German Icons: Berlin, Dresden and Munich

Program No. 16877RJ
Dive deep into the culture of Germany as you explore three iconic cities, discovering politics in Berlin, architecture in Dresden and weisswurst, beer and a baroque palace in Munich.

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itinerary
Please Note:
The itinerary for this program is different on certain dates.
Select your type of room
Price will update based on selection
Prices displayed below are based on per person,doubleoccupancy.
DATES & starting prices
PRICES
Jun 7 - Jun 17, 2023
Starting at
4,349
Sep 13 - Sep 23, 2023
Starting at
5,149
Itinerary Note

This program takes place during Oktoberfest 2023 in Munich and includes one full day at the Oktoberfest with a visit to a traditional beer tent and a meal.

Oct 11 - Oct 21, 2023
Starting at
5,149
Itinerary Note

This program runs in reversed order, starting in Munich and finishing in Berlin.

Apr 17 - Apr 27, 2024
Starting at
4,699
May 29 - Jun 8, 2024
Starting at
4,699
Aug 28 - Sep 7, 2024
Starting at
4,699
Oct 16 - Oct 26, 2024
Starting at
4,699
DATES & starting prices
PRICES
Jun 7 - Jun 17, 2023
Starting at
4,919
Sep 13 - Sep 23, 2023
Starting at
6,489
Itinerary Note

This program takes place during Oktoberfest 2023 in Munich and includes one full day at the Oktoberfest with a visit to a traditional beer tent and a meal.

Oct 11 - Oct 21, 2023
Starting at
6,489
Itinerary Note

This program runs in reversed order, starting in Munich and finishing in Berlin.

Apr 17 - Apr 27, 2024
Starting at
5,539
May 29 - Jun 8, 2024
Starting at
5,539
Aug 28 - Sep 7, 2024
Starting at
5,539
Oct 16 - Oct 26, 2024
Starting at
5,539

At a Glance

Join local experts to discover the shared history and unique identity behind Germany’s most important cultural metropolises — Berlin and Munich. While both cities boast rich history, traditions and arts, the cultures of each are strikingly different. Halfway between Berlin and Munich, visit the city of Dresden to marvel at the cultural treasures that lay hidden behind the Iron Curtain for a generation.
Activity Level
Keep the Pace
Walking up to two hours/two miles at a time, sometimes twice per day. Some program days require walking up to five miles and standing for up to 2 hours. Some sights are only accessible by stairs and/or cobblestones. Public transportation and motor coaches used throughout the program.
Small Group
Small Group
Love to learn and explore in a small-group setting? These adventures offer small, personal experiences with groups of 13 to 24 participants.

Best of all, you’ll…

  • Examine Berlin’s artistic treasures on the famous Museumsinsel and the German Bundestag, redesigned by Sir Norman Foster.
  • Discover Dresden with its newly restored Frauenkirche and the highly regarded Semperoper.
  • Explore the collection of Old Masters from the 14th to the 18th centuries at one of the oldest art galleries in the world – the Alte Pinakothek.

General Notes

Program includes independent time to explore the city and several meals on your own. Group Leaders will provide directions for self-directed excursions. Suggestions for free-time activities provided in preparatory materials.
Featured Expert
All Experts
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Burkhard Heyl
Burkhard Heyl has performed in films, television and radio play productions both internationally and in his home country of Germany. He studied acting at the Folkwang School in Essen, Germany, and has authored numerous screenplays and short stories. A decorated excursion leader, Burkhard accompanies explorers on highly personalized adventures through Berlin and Potsdam while sharing his expertise and passion for the region’s history.

Please note: This expert may not be available for every date of this program.

Profile Image of Burkhard Heyl
Burkhard Heyl View biography
Burkhard Heyl has performed in films, television and radio play productions both internationally and in his home country of Germany. He studied acting at the Folkwang School in Essen, Germany, and has authored numerous screenplays and short stories. A decorated excursion leader, Burkhard accompanies explorers on highly personalized adventures through Berlin and Potsdam while sharing his expertise and passion for the region’s history.
Profile Image of Wolf Refardt
Wolf Refardt View biography
An expert on the military history of the 19th and 20th centuries, Wolf Refardt enjoys sharing his knowledge during his lectures and classes on the events of the Cold War. Wolf has published papers on themes that range from Sepulchral culture in enlightened absolutism to the development of public welfare in Brandenburg, and to the history of battles that took place during World War II.
Profile Image of Sabine Rosenkranz
Sabine Rosenkranz View biography
Sabine Rosenkranz was born in Dresden, East Germany, where she grew up to become an English teacher. In love with her beautiful home city, she decided she wanted to introduce it to visitors. Sabine became a licensed city excursion leader 25 years ago and has delighted in leading American visitors around Dresden since the German reunification of 1990. She particularly enjoys showing off the Saxon State Art Collections.
Profile Image of John Langton
John Langton View biography
John Langton, an authorized director at the Pinakotheken galleries in Munich, has lived and worked in the Bavarian capital for the past 15 years. John holds a diploma in the history of fine and decorative arts from London, studying there after completing his international career in finance and management. A keen history student John is always looking to place the fine and applied arts, into their social, political or cultural context; thus giving relevance for the benefit of his guests and visitors.
Profile Image of Janet Kempf
Janet Kempf View biography
Janet Kempt studied art history, Spanish and history in Berlin, Madrid and Munich. She has worked in both the curatorial and pedagogical fields of museums since 2006. One of her favorite works of art is Donatello's “Putto with Tambourine” in the Bode Museum, which presents the beginning of the Renaissance in Italy in an extraordinary way.
Profile Image of Richard Obermaier
Richard Obermaier View biography
Richard is a certified group leader in Munich and Bavaria. He is trained as a banker and studied business administration, receiving his PhD from Ludwig Maximilian University. He has worked as a manager and director for large companies including Sixt and Allianz. He is a business trainer in the field of motivation, coaching and "learn to learn" (written test preparation). Richard has led groups in his native Munich for about a decade.
Profile Image of André Meral
André Meral View biography
André is a political scientist who received his university degree from the Freie Universität Berlin. For many years he has been working as a group leader in Berlin and other places in Germany and Europe with a special focus on political history and the culture of remembrance. In Berlin, he works as a group leader for the German Federal Parliament (Deutscher Bundestag) and the Museum of Film and Cinema. He speaks German as a mother tongue as well as English, French and Italian.
Visit the Road Scholar Bookshop
You can find many of the books we recommend at the Road Scholar store on bookshop.org, a website that supports local bookstores.
The White Rose
by Inge Scholl
The White Rose tells the story of Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl, who in 1942 led a small underground organization of German students and professors to oppose the atrocities committed by Hitler and the Nazi Party. They named their group the White Rose, and they distributed leaflets denouncing the Nazi regime. Sophie, Hans, and a third student were caught and executed. Written by Inge Scholl (Hans' and Sophie's sister), The White Rose features letters, diary excerpts, photographs of Hans and Sophie, transcriptions of the leaflets, and accounts of the trial and execution. This is a gripping account of courage and morality.
Stasiland
by Anna Funder
Not surprisingly the fall of the Berlin Wall caused panic at the Stasi headquarters, as described in Anna Funder's riveting portrait of East Germany's secret police and how it controlled a nation.
The Tin Drum
by Günter Grass
Günter Grass is a widely acclaimed author of plays, essays, poems, and numerous novels. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999.
German History in Modern Times: Four Lives of the Nation
by William W. Hagen
This history of German-speaking central Europe offers a very wide perspective, emphasizing a succession of many-layered communal identities. It highlights the interplay of individual, society, culture and political power, contrasting German with Western patterns.
Alone in Berlin
by Hans Fallada
In 1940, in the heart of Hitler's capital, Otto and Anna Quangel are alone in Berlin with a breathtaking campaign of resistance.
The Book Thief
by Markus Zusak
Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.
Book of Clouds
by Chloe Aridjis
Chloe Aridjis's beautifully evocative novel is set in today's Berlin; a young Mexican woman flees her family only to find a city that cannot escape its past.
Germany: Memories of a Nation
by Neil MacGregor
From Neil MacGregor, the author of A History of the World in 100 Objects, this is a view of Germany like no otherFor the past 140 years, Germany has been the central power in continental Europe. Twenty-five years ago a new German state came into being. How much do we really understand this new Germany, and how do its people now understand themselves?
Where Ghosts Walked: Munich's Road to the Third Reich
by David Clay Large
The capital of the Nazi movement was not Berlin but Munich, according to Hitler himself. In examining why, historian David Clay Large begins in Munich four decades before World War I and finds a proto-fascist cultural heritage that proved fertile soil later for Hitler's movement. An engrossing account of the time and place that launched Hitler on the road to power.
Five Germanys I have known
by Fritz Stern
The "German question" haunts the modern world: How could so civilized a nation be responsible for the greatest horror in Western history? In this unusual fusion of personal memoir and history, the celebrated scholar Fritz Stern refracts the question through the prism of his own life.
The Swan King: Ludwig II of Bavaria
by Christopher McIntosh
"The Swan King" is the biography of one of the most enigmatic figures of the 19th century, described by Verlaine as 'the only true king of his century'. A man of wildly eccentric temperament and touched by a rare, imaginative genius, Ludwig II of Bavaria is remembered both for his patronage of Richard Wagner and for the fabulous palaces which he created as part of a dream-world to escape the responsibilities of state. In realization of his fantasies, he created a ferment of creativity among artists and craftsmen, while his neglect of Bavaria's political interests made powerful enemies among those critical of his self-indulgence and excesses. At the age of 40, declared insane in a plot to depose him, Ludwig died in mysterious circumstances.
The Berlin Wall Story
by Hans-Hermann Hertle
Where did the Berlin Wall actually stand? Why was it built? How did people keep managing to escape across it – and how many died in the attempt? Why did it come down in the end? Numerous previously unknown photographs document the construction of this barrier system of barbed wire, alarm fences and concrete. Spectacular escape stories and shocking deaths are chronicled here in words and images, as are the dramatic events surrounding the construction and the fall of the Wall. A stunning survey of the Berlin Wall – the central symbol of the Cold War.





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