This is the Germany chapter from Lonely Planet's Western Europe guidebook.

Beer or wine? Berlin or Munich? Castle or club? East or west? The answers are simple: both. Why decide? The beauty of Germany is that rather than choosing, you can revel in the contrasts.

• party day and night in Berlin; save sleep for somewhere else as there's no time here with the clubs, museums, bars and ever-changing zeitgeist
• maps
• time your journey for Oktoberfest, Munich's orgy of suds, or just hang out in a beer garden
• transport
• go cuckoo in the Black Forest, discovering its chilly crags, misty peaks and endless trails
• restaurants & accommodation

Coverage includes: Berlin, Brandenburg, Potsdam, Saxony, Dresden & around, Leipzig, Thuringia, Erfurt, Eisenach, Weimar, Buchenwald, Saxony-Anhalt, Magdeburg, Dessau-Rosslau, Mecklenburg-Western, Pomerania, Schwerin, Wismar, Rostock, Warnemünde, Stralsund, Bavaria, Munich, Dachau, Würzburg, Bamberg, Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber, Nuremberg, Regensburg, Augsburg, Füssen, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Oberammergau, Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart, Tübingen, Heidelberg, Baden-Baden, Black Forest, Alpirsbach, Schiltach, Triberg & around, Feldberg, Freiburg Im Breisgau, Lake Constance, Constance, Meersburg, Lindau, Rhineland-Palatinate, Moselle Valley, Trier, Rhine Valley, Hesse, Frankfurt-Am-Main, North Rhine-Westphalia, Cologne, Bonn, Düsseldorf, Aachen, Lower Saxony, Hanover & around, Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck, North Frisian Islands, Sylt, Understand Germany, History, Arts, Food & Drink, Survival Guide, Directory, Getting There & Away, and Getting Around.