4 Best Sights in Magdeburg, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia

Like an exuberant painting come to life, the Green Citadel is the last, and many say greatest, building by the late Austrian artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who designed the citadel as an "oasis for humanity and nature within a sea of rational houses." Renowned throughout Germany and beyond, this ensemble of baroque façades and colorful modern buildings displays the architect's characteristic irregular windows, skewed towers, colorful mosaics, and joyous flourishes. The vast complex also incorporates bustling restaurants and enticing boutiques.

The city's major landmark and Germany's first Gothic cathedral, the impressive Magdeburg Cathedral's magnificent towers are visible from miles around. Constructed on the site of an ancient abbey, the cathedral took over 300 years to build, beginning around 1200, with the completion of the steeples—Germany's tallest—in 1520. Filled with important statuary, paintings, and artifacts that date from the Gothic to the present day, the bright, soaring space is a pleasure to behold.

A lovely park with a number of attactions, the most dramatic being the Millennium Tower. This wacky building, which seems to list to one side, is the tallest wooden structure in Germany and offers five floors of interactive exhibitions tracing the world's most important innovations and evolutions over the last 6000 years. The park also has themed gardens, a butterfly house, a summer toboggan run, and performance spaces.

Situated on the Elbe River in the city center, this beautiful Romanesque monastery, dating from 1017 and expanded in 1220 in the Gothic style, makes a splendid home for the Magdeburg Museum of Art and the Georg Philipp Telemann concert hall, two of the city's major cultural centers. The art museum features permanent and special exhibitions of international contemporary artists and houses an important library with volumes dating back to 1638.