🇩🇪Germany

A city that kept its scars on purpose — the Wall, the bullet-pocked facades, the memorials in the middle of everything — and then built the most relaxed capital in Europe around them. Cheap by Western standards, open all night, and not at all interested in impressing you.

Germany's port city — red-brick warehouses on canals, container ships sliding past the fish market, a concert hall shaped like a wave, and the Reeperbahn for when the sun goes down. Wetter and grander than you expect, and more fun than its reputation for reserve suggests.

Germany's richest big city and its most Bavarian — beer gardens under chestnut trees, a gold-and-baroque old town, the Alps on the horizon on a clear day, and the most expensive hotel rooms in the country.