Germany is a win-win when it comes to future holidays

It’s only football… so let’s celebrate everything else the country has to offer, says Greg Dickinson ‘The Bavarian lakes offer a paradise of hidden shores, camping spots and fresh fish’

It’s a powerful thing, the EnglandGermany football rivalry. As a nation we are divided on a great many things, but on Tuesday we all put our differences aside to punch the air in delight when Raheem Sterling and Harry Kane confirmed that football is, indeed, almost definitely coming home.

Alright, one step at a time – we have a strong Ukraine side to see off tonight, before we can progress any further. But beating Germany this week certainly felt like a cup-final win in its own right: a moment of collective catharsis after a difficult 18 months. I was there, at Wembley, and I chanted my vocal cords dry.

Now, as we reappraise our relationship with Germany in the footballing stakes, it is a fitting moment to take a fresh look at how we view the country as a place to visit. For it is, in my opinion, woefully underrated. My love affair with Germany began in Berlin, in 2008. I was there with three friends – the first city on a month-long interrailing trip across the Continent. Our route would take in the usual hedonistic stop-offs of Prague, Budapest, Munich and Amsterdam, but also (we were cultured youths, thank you very much) Venice, Vienna and the Swiss mountain town of Interlaken.

This pre-university jaunt would kick off a series of passions. It spawned my appreciation of Europe’s efficient railways, and birthed an enduring penchant for pilsners. But another unexpected result of the trip was that it sparked my love affair with the Germans and Germany: a nation I would go on to visit half a dozen times more in the decade that followed.

It has always surprised me how overlooked Germany is as a place to visit. In 2019, Britons paid 3.4 million visits to Germany, only a smidge more than the number who visited Poland (3.3 million). By comparison, we made 18.1 million visits to Spain and 10.3 million to France. Yes, Germany has a fairly scrimpy North Sea coast – not exactly the Med – and the summer isn’t as reliably balmy as southern Europe, but our neighbour deserves far more attention than it gets, when you consider everything else it has to offer.

In its cities, which are indeed a big pull, Germany delivers on the superlatives. Berlin is quite simply the coolest place in Europe, maybe on Earth, with a subcultural heartbeat that pounds louder and deeper than Williamsburg or Hackney. There is no city in the world that delivers a beer-drinking experience that even comes close to Munich – though the boozy reputation unfairly overshadows its imposing neoGothic architecture, uncrowded art galleries and distinctly Bavarian character.

And in Cologne, a vibrant student city visibly scarred from the war, you’ll find rising from the low-slung skyline a cathedral unlike any other in the world.

On my cycle down the Danube, a glorious route that I picked up in Regensburg and followed down to Vienna ( just a small portion of the full 1,800-mile cycle path), I was introduced to the delights of the southern German countryside. The river wends through pastel-washed villages, past mile upon mile of cow-chomped farmland and via grand medieval cities such as Passau – named, unoriginally, the “Venice of the North” for its three converging rivers.

And while hitch-hiking across the country I encountered frank, no-nonsense friendliness. People listened, and responded to my request for a lift with a smile. They accepted or declined depending on whether it fitted in with their schedule, rather than the suspicious response you tend to receive in the UK. And most did actually say “yes” or “no”. Germans seem to adopt the mentality that there is no shame in