Germany with kids

Five museums on one ticket for twenty-eight dollars — the Ishtar Gate, Nefertiti's bust and a Greek altar rebuilt indoors. A full day.

Nefertiti, alone in a domed room, plus the Egyptian and prehistory collections. Sixteen dollars.

A 360-degree painted panorama of the ancient city, while the Pergamon Museum itself is closed for rebuilding. Sixteen dollars.

Two hundred metres up the tower you can see from everywhere, twenty-three dollars. Book a slot; the queue is long.

Europe's fastest lift to a Potsdamer Platz roof terrace, ten dollars. Cheaper and emptier than the TV tower.

Life in East Germany, hands-on — you sit in a Trabant and open the cupboards in a flat. Sixteen dollars and the best history museum here for children.

Escape stories and footage at the longest surviving stretch of the Wall. Twelve dollars.

A painted panorama of a single autumn day beside the Wall in the 1980s. Sixteen dollars and quietly devastating.

A thousand objects of armour and weaponry with a lot of screens. Twenty-two dollars and much better than it sounds.

On Unter den Linden, twenty-six dollars.

Frederick the Great's summer palace above terraced vineyards, twenty-eight dollars. Pair it with the Potsdam trip.

A concentration camp memorial an hour north. Unflinching, and not an exhibit with a gentler version. Twelve and up, prepared beforehand, or not at all.

Cold War tradecraft with a laser maze to crawl through at the end. Twenty-seven dollars and children stay far longer than planned.

Fifty years of games, most of them playable, including a Pong cabinet. Twenty-two dollars.

At Potsdamer Platz, twenty-three dollars, with a Berlin Miniland. Adults are not admitted without a child.

Optical illusion rooms, nineteen dollars. An hour, and Berlin has a great many grey afternoons.

Playable, photographable rooms. Twenty-two dollars and squarely aimed at older children.

The glass dome over the parliament chamber, with the government quarter explained. Seventeen dollars.

Twenty-eight dollars, and Berlin is genuinely enormous — the sights are kilometres apart.

The Brandenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie and the memorial, explained in order. Twenty-three dollars and the cheapest way to make sense of it.

Half an hour out, for the palaces and the Dutch quarter. Twenty-six dollars.

In the Olympic Park, twenty-three dollars, with a tunnel. Pair it with the tower and the BMW museum next door.

Cars, motorbikes and engines in a building shaped like a cylinder head. Twenty-two dollars, opposite the Olympic Park.

The first concentration camp, an hour out. As with Sachsenhausen: twelve and up, prepared beforehand, or not at all.

Twenty-nine dollars, and the Olympic Park cluster is a long way from the old town.

The Marienplatz glockenspiel, the markets and the churches. Twenty-seven dollars.

The castle Disney borrowed, plus the smaller palace Ludwig actually lived in. Seventy dollars with transport and timed entry handled.

Germany's highest point, by cogwheel train and cable car, with snow at the top most of the year. A hundred and sixty-eight dollars.

An electric boat on a fjord-green lake, then a salt mine you enter on a wooden slide in overalls. The best family day in Bavaria.

A walled medieval town with a wall you walk round the top of. Seventy-six dollars.

The Bayern Munich stadium tour with a city sightseeing loop on the same ticket. Sixty-three dollars.

Transport plus a list of attractions, forty-six dollars. Good value across two days.

Over the border for the day, ninety-two dollars, which is cheaper than doing it from Vienna.

An 1896 sailing ship moored in the harbour that you climb all over. Eight dollars.

In the Speicherstadt warehouses, eight dollars, and you can touch and smell everything in it.

Five million people left Europe through this port. Fourteen dollars, and it is told through families rather than numbers.

Germany's oldest wax museum, eleven dollars. Cheap, old-fashioned and short.

Seven centuries of art including Friedrich's Wanderer. Twenty-one dollars.

Through the container terminals and then into the warehouse canals. Thirty dollars and the thing to do first.

Twenty-four dollars, with the harbour and the Alster lakes on the route.

Transport plus attractions, fifty-two dollars. Works over two days here.

On a spit of land in the Rhine, with a working production line and a chocolate fountain. Twenty dollars.

With an aquarium and a cable car across the Rhine from the gate. Thirty-four dollars.

A spiral building at Stuttgart you walk down through 130 years of cars. Twenty-one dollars.

Across the city from the Mercedes museum, nineteen dollars, and smaller. Doing both in a day is entirely possible.

A film-themed theme park at Bottrop, thirty-five dollars, an hour north. The biggest day out in this region.

Ten dollars on the riverbank opposite the cathedral. Short, cheap and well placed.

Six hundred years to build, and 533 steps up the south tower if anyone is willing. Twenty-seven dollars guided.

Where eau de Cologne was invented in 1709, with a guided tour and a lot of smelling. Seventeen dollars.

Thirty dollars, with a skyline route. Useful on an arrival or departure day at the airport.

The UNESCO stretch of the river with castles on both banks, from Frankfurt. Long, and the boat is the point.

A ruined red castle above a river town, with a funicular up and the world's largest wine barrel inside. Twenty-nine dollars.