For couples: 5 romantic city trips across Germany

• The historic pubs in Bamberg serve the traditional smoked beer.
• As an open-air museum of European architecture, Trier is worth a visit.
• Worms is the home of "Liebfrauenmilch" and the Nibelungen sagas.

Hand on heart: you would like to spend more time with your loved one, but you don't know exactly when, how and where – after all, you want to make your partner happy. Then you are not alone, because according to a recent survey by the polling institute Ipsos, more than a third of the couples surveyed would like to spend more time together.

How about a romantic city break in Germany? You hardly need any vacation days, a long weekend is enough and you can be there in just a few hours. We present five romantic cities across the country that are not yet so overcrowded.

1. Bamberg: Discover Franconian Rome – with beer and beef ham

Bamberg has only 73,000 inhabitants, but what there is to see in Upper Franconia's 1000-year-old showcase city doesn't just blow romantics away. Like Italy's capital Rome, Bamberg was built on seven hills and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The old town is the largest, intact historical city center in Germany, because Bamberg was largely spared from bombing during the Second World War.

Medieval and baroque architecture amaze every visitor: Among the 1200 monuments, the four-tower imperial cathedral with the famous stone Bamberger Reiter, the old town hall with its frescoes, which give the facade plasticity, and the oldest way of the cross in the republic stand out.

In addition to strolling through the episcopal city, a gondola ride is one of the romantic highlights. On the Regnitz, original Venetian gondolas take you past the medieval half-timbered houses of the former fishing settlement in the Bamberg island town.

If you need a culinary refreshment, you can fortify yourself in cute cafés and historic taverns with “Zwätschgabaamäs”, an air-dried beef ham and a number of local beers such as smoked beer – because Bamberg is proud of its beer tradition.

2. Meersburg on Lake Constance: old castle, new castle and alpine panorama

The nation's oldest inhabited castle, magnificent palace complexes, winding alleys and romantic squares – and all of this right on Lake Constance: Meersburg is located in the extreme south of the republic, the gem for romantics. Here, not only the location directly on Central Europe's second largest lake and the view of the Swiss Alps on the opposite side overwhelm you, but also the magnificent buildings in the small town. The landmark is the castle from the 7th century with the Dagobertsturm, which can be climbed from April to November and offers a fantastic view of the city, lake and mountains.

After a tour of the castle museum with its knight's hall, castle dungeon, weapons hall, torture chamber and well room, the romantic highlight awaits in the courtyard on summer evenings: the “Carlina people” play music from the Middle Ages and Renaissance on historical instruments by candlelight.

The next day, the prince and princess can continue in the New Palace. The prince-bishop's residence with its magnificent architecture was embellished in the 18th century by artists such as Balthasar Neumann and Giuseppe Appiani. The palace museum shows stucco work, frescoes and the courtly world of the Baroque era.

3. Trier: Strolling in the open-air museum of European architecture

Even the Roman emperors loved it: Trier, with a past more than 2000 years old, is not only a former imperial residence and Germany's oldest city, but also one of the most beautiful in the country. This is due to the many well-preserved buildings from different epochs and in various styles – from the Roman, Romanesque and Gothic times to the Renaissance, Baroque and Classicism. Unesco found this too and ennobled the Rhineland-Palatinate city to a World Heritage Site 30 years ago.

The 100,000 residents are proud of their landmarks, the Porta Nigra, the Roman amphitheater, the Kaiserthermen, the cathedral and the Church of Our Lady. But it is not just the feeling of moving in an open-air museum of European architecture that gives the episcopal and university city a special charm.

The location on the Moselle invites you to romantic river trips. Now you are spoiled for choice: A candlelight dinner in the old town with a view of magnificent Roman monuments or the river – of course with a glass of wine from the wine-growing regions of the Moselle, Saar and Ruwer.

4. Wismar: Hanseatic city with brick romance in the Mecklenburg Bay

Green, blue, yellow and brick red: Wismar indulges in a play of colors from the green of nature, the blue of the Baltic Sea, the yellow of the coastal sand and the red of the brick Gothic. And the 42,000-inhabitant city lies in the Mecklenburg Bay, between Lübeck, Rostock and Schwerin.

As a Unesco World Heritage Site, the Hanseatic city scores with churches in the brick Gothic style, with medieval town houses, five city gates in the city wall, a well-preserved fortified tower, the late Gothic prince's court, its town hall in the classicist style and the largest market square in Northern Germany.

In the Speicherstadt in the Old Harbor you can still feel the splendor of the Hanseatic era, when Wismar was a powerful trading town. This is where the fishing boats lie today, on the other side of the harbor yachts and ships of visitors to this romantic city in the north of the republic swing.

5. Worms: Wine, Luther, Nibelungen saga and a sea of ​​flowers on the Rhine promenade

Drink a Liebfrauenmilch with your loved one in a romantic atmosphere? There is no more suitable place for this than Worms, where the famous white wine has its origin. The 2000 year old Rhineland-Palatinate city is surrounded by vineyards. In the third largest wine-growing community in Germany, not only wine is a big topic, but also emperors and kings, myths and legends of the Nibelungs. Because most of the epic scenes are set in and around Worms.

The dragon slayer Siegfried is immortalized with its own fountain and every summer the Nibelungen Festival takes place in front of the Imperial Cathedral. The whole year round you can experience the epic in the multimedia Nibelungen Museum, where the heroes are resurrected. Another hero of the city of 82,000 is Martin Luther, who refused to revoke his theses here in 1521. Commemorative plaques in the Heylshofpark, where a large art collection is also housed, commemorate this as well as the Luther monument.

If you need relaxation in nature after so much sightseeing, you can walk ten minutes north past the Gothic Church of Our Lady to the Rhine promenade. The almost 100 year old park with 25,000 plants is the green belt in the city. Speaking of meadows, forests, ponds: a visit to the baroque Herrnsheim Palace, which is surrounded by a large park, gets really romantic. Many weddings also take place here.