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Six fascinating events to dive into spring in Germany

Forsythia flowers are in full bloom and April is loaded with events to celebrate the warmer weather and sunshine to come. Here are some of our top picks.

Published: 27 March 2024 16:57 CET
Bremer's easter meadow fest
Bremer's Osterwiese is one of the largest spring festivals in Germany. The festival is open daily from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m. until April 7, except on Good Friday. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Sina Schuldt

Spring Festivals across Germany 

Starting around Easter weekend, Germany’s myriad spring festivals bring bright colours and beer-fueled revelry to cities around the country. 

Spring festivals come by many names in Germany – there’s the clearly named Frühlingsfest (spring fest) such as in Munich, or the Volksfest (people’s festival) like in Nuremberg, and then there are uniquely named local variations like Frankfurt’s Dippemess. But they all offer carnival rides, abundant food and drink, and an opportunity to see how German’s let loose – think Oktoberfest, but with a palpable spring theme.

This year both Dippemass in Frankfurt and Volksfest in Nuremberg begin in late March and continue until April 14th.

Munich’s Frühlingsfest will run from April 19th to May 5th. Stuttgart’s spring festival is on from April 20th to May 12th.

Readers in the north of the country may want to try Hamburg’s DOM running until April 21st this year.

Cherry blossom gazing

Delicate white and pink blossoms that appear only for a couple weeks in April, cherry blossoms are both a symbol of spring and object of fascination around the world, from the furthest reaches of East Asia to right here in Germany.

The early onset of warmer temperatures in Germany this year is causing cherry trees to bloom earlier than usual, but there should still be some blossoms on the trees during the previously scheduled cherry blossom festivals that take place in many German cities.

READ ALSO: Seven signs that spring has arrived in Germany

The city of Bonn’s old town, with its cherry tree covered streets, has become the go to spot for blossom gazing and photography in Germany. Early to mid-April tends to be the best time to visit, and this year the blossom-adorned streets will be closed to cars for three weekends starting from April 13th.

But if you don’t live close to Bonn you can find several locations around Germany where cherry blossoms are in full bloom here.

cherry blossoms Bonn

Tourists stroll under blossoming cherry trees in Bonn’s old town. In the narrow streets of the old town, blossoming trees form a pink canopy in April. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Thomas Banneyer

Music festivals begin

While the majority of Germany’s bigger music festivals are held in summer, there are quite a few in spring – with a few noteworthy music fests even happening in the coming month.

For fans of metal music, the 19th iteration of Ragnarök Festival will be held at Stadthalle Lichtenfels on April 4th to the 6th this year.

For something a little softer, Polimagie Festival in Dresden features indie, rock and pop artists from Germany, the UK, and Europe – from April 17th to 21st.

Alternatively, jazz and big band lovers are encouraged to check out the fourth Jazz Festival of the Deutsche Oper in Berlin. Several concerts will take place from the 17th to 22nd. Single tickets are around €20, and are found here.

International Women’s Film Fest in Dortmund and Cologne: April 16th to 21st

Germany’s largest forum for women in the film industry, the “Frauen Film Fest” aims to “strengthen the influence of women in all trades of the cinema industry: first and foremost directors, but also cinematographers, producers, screenwriters, composers, actors and more.”

It’s also an opportunity to see one of 95 films from 40 countries. Choose from screenings of short film collections or feature length films from debuting including those entered in the International Debut Feature Film Competition.

There are also workshops and discussions that allow attendees to meet some of the women behind the films.

Find more information here.

Gallery Weekend Berlin – April 26th to 28th

Since 2005, Berlin galleries have presented exhibitions by emerging and established artists during this three day event. 

The last gallery weekend included performances, screenings, sound pieces, readings, and installations. This year 55 galleries spread across Berlin’s central neighbourhoods will participate.

According to the event organisers, a handful of exciting new galleries will join the event this year including: Galerie Molitor, Noah Klink Galerie, Schiefe Zähne, Sweetwater and Heidi.

More information can be found at Gallery Weekend Berlin’s website.

witches stare each other down

On Walpurgis Nacht, people in witch and devil costumes storm the town hall in Wernigerode. The traditional Walpurgis festival is celebrated throughout the Harz Mountains. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Matthias Bein
 

Walpurgis Nacht

The origins of Walpurgis Night date back 1,000 years to pagan traditions in Germany, and is celebrated on the night of April 30th each year. 

St. Walpurgis was honoured with a feast day on May 1st, and people gathered to dance the night before. It’s also considered to be the time when witches gather. The name “Walpurgis Nacht” was popularised by Goethe’s Faust in 1808.

Smaller villages in some regions in Germany, like the Harz mountains, celebrate Walpurgis Nacht with festivals. Bad Grund, for example, hosts festivities including open air theatre and dancing. 

Walpurgis related celebrations can also be found in Germany’s bigger cities, such as Peaceful Walpurgis Night which is hosted in Berlin’s Mauerpark each year.

READ ALSO: Are you ready for Walpurgisnacht, Germany’s night of witches?

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DISCOVER GERMANY

Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

With thousands of years of history in Germany to explore, you’re never going to run out of museums to scratch the itch to learn about and fully experience the world of the past.

Published: 5 April 2024 10:46 CEST
Eight amazing German museums to explore this spring

Here are eight of our favourite museums across Germany’s 16 states for you to discover for yourself. 

Arche Nebra

Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt

One day, around 1600 BCE, local Bronze Age peoples buried one of their most precious objects – the Nebra Sky Disk, a copper, gold, and bronze disk that acted as a calendar to help them plant crops. This was a matter of life and death at the time. 

Over three thousand years later, in 1999, it was uncovered by black market treasure hunters, becoming Germany’s most significant archaeological find. 

While the Sky Disk itself is kept in the (really very good)  State Museum of Pre- and Early History in nearby Halle, the site of the discovery is marked by the Arche Nebra, a museum explaining prehistoric astronomy and the cultural practices of the people who made it. 

Kids will love the planetarium, explaining how the disk was used. 

Atomkeller Museum

Halgerloch, Baden-Württemberg

From the distant to the very recent past – in this case, the Nazi atomic weapons programme. Even as defeat loomed, Nazi scientists such as Werner Heisenberg were trying to develop a nuclear bomb. 

While this mainly took place in Berlin, an old beer cellar under the town of Halgerloch, south of Stuttgart, was commandeered as the site of a prototype fission reactor. 

A squad of American soldiers captured and dismantled the reactor as the war ended. Still, the site was later turned into a museum documenting German efforts to create a working reactor – one that they could use to develop a bomb.

It’s important to note that you don’t need to be a physicist to understand what they were trying to do here, as the explanatory materials describe the scientist’s efforts in a manner that is easy to understand. 

German National Museum

Nuremberg, Bavaria

Remember that scene at the end of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’, where an unnamed government official wheels the Ark of the Covenant into an anonymous government warehouse? This could possibly be the German equivalent – albeit far better presented. 

The German National Museum was created in 1852 as a repository for the cultural history of the German nation – even before the country’s founding. In the intervening 170 years, it’s grown to swallow an entire city block of Nuremberg, covering 60,000 years of history and hundreds of thousands of objects. 

If it relates to the history of Germany since prehistoric times, you’re likely to find it here.

Highlights include several original paintings and etchings by Albrecht Dürer, the mysterious Bronze Age ‘Gold Hats’, one of Europe’s most significant collections of costuming and musical instruments, and a vast display of weapons, armour and firearms. 

European Hansemuseum

Lübeck, Schleswig-Holstein

In the late Middle Ages, the political and economic centre of the world was focused on the North Sea and the Baltic German coasts. 

This was the domain of the Hanseatic League, one of the most powerful trading alliances in human history. Centuries before the Dutch and British East India Companies, they made in-roads to far-flung corners.

The European Hansemuseum in the former Hanseatic city of Lübeck tells the story of the league’s rise and eventual fall, its day-to-day operations, and its enduring legacy.

This museum is fascinating for adults and kids. It uses original artefacts and high-tech interactive elements to tell tales of maritime adventure. Younger visitors will also be enchanted by the museum’s augmented reality phone app that asks them to help solve mysteries. 

Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum

Augsburg, Germany

The Hanseatic League was not the only economic power in the late Middle Ages. The Fugger and Welser families of Augsburg may have been the richest in the world until the 20th century.

From humble beginnings, both families grew to become incredibly powerful moneylenders, funding many of the wars of the 16th century and the conquest of the New World.

The Fugger & Welser Adventure Museum not only explains the rise of both patrician families but also the practices that led to their inconceivable wealth—including, sadly, the start of the Transatlantic slave trade. 

The museum also documents the short-lived Welser colony in Venezuela, which, if it had survived, could have resulted in a very different world history.

This museum has many high tech displays, making it a very exciting experience for moguls of any age.

Teutoburg Forest Museum

Kalkriese, Lower Saxony

Every German child learns this story at some point: One day at the end of summer 9 AD, three legions of the Roman army marched into the Teutoburg forest… and never came out. 

Soldiers sent after the vanished legions discovered that they had been slaughtered to a man.

Arminius, a German who had been raised as a Roman commander, had betrayed the three legions to local Germanic tribes, who ambushed them while marching through the forest. 

Today, the probable site of the battle – we can’t entirely be sure – is marked by a museum called the Varusschlacht Museum (Literally ‘Varus Battle Museum’, named after the loyal Roman commander). 

The highlights here are the finds – made all the more eerie by the knowledge that they were looted and discarded from the legionaries in the hours following the ambush. 

German Romanticism Museum

Frankfurt, Hesse

The Romantic era of art, music and literature is one of Germany’s greatest cultural gifts to the world, encompassing the work of poets such as Goethe and Schiller, composers like Beethoven and artists in the vein of Caspar David Friedrich.

Established in 2021 next to the house where Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born, the German Romanticism Museum is the world’s largest collection of objects related to the Romantic movement. 

In addition to artefacts from some of the greatest names in German romanticism, in 2024, you’ll find a major exhibition exploring Goethe’s controversial 1774 novel, ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’, and another on the forest as depicted as dark and dramatic in the art of the period. 

Gutenberg Castle

Haßmersheim, Baden-Württemberg

Sometimes being a smaller castle is a good thing. The relatively small size and location of Guttenburg Castle, above the River Neckar near Heilbronn, protected it from war and damage over eight hundred years – it’s now the best preserved Staufer-era castle in the country.

While the castle is still occupied by the Barons of Gemmingen-Guttenberg, the castle now also contains a museum, that uses the remarkably well-preserved castle interiors to explore centuries of its history – and the individuals that passed through it.

After you’ve explored the museum—and the current exhibition that uses Lego to document life in the Middle Ages —it’s also possible to eat at the castle’s tavern and stay overnight!

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