One of the better ways to spend a day in Munich, especially with kids. The Deutsches Museum sits on…read morea small island in the Isar and covers pretty much every corner of science and technology, and what makes it stand out is how much of it you can actually touch and interact with: cranks to turn, experiments to run, buttons that do things. It's not just cases full of objects behind glass. Depending on your party and how they like these type of things, plan for at least half a day; the place is enormous and easy to get lost in, which is half the fun. The kids' sections held up well for the younger ones, and the aviation and engineering exhibits kept the adults just as occupied. You can bring in food and some of the areas allow food and drinks so bring your lunch and find a place in the halls to sit if you want to. Buy your ticket online before you go. The walk-up queue when we visited was long enough to lose a meaningful chunk of your day, and there's no reason to stand in it. Depending on which ticket type you get, you may need to stop at the information desk to convert to a paper ticket before entry, which nobody tells you upfront. Some visitors seemed to go straight through; we did not. Either way, sort that out before you walk to the entry gate or you'll end up backtracking.

We spent a full five hours here yesterday and it was amazing. Most of our time went into the…read morechemistry, music, mathematics, and health sections--so much to learn, so little time. We arrived around 11 a.m., which worked out perfectly and gave us enough time to explore most of the exhibits. The cafeteria was extremely crowded with limited seating, probably because it's peak holiday season. The food was fine--typical cafeteria fare. Next time we're in Munich, I'd happily come back to see the exhibits we missed. My teenage kids even said this is the best museum they've ever visited, and they've been to many museums around the world. Definitely a memorable experience for all of us.

This is a great museum to learn about the history of Ulm and the building of the cathedral. Kids…read morelove it and it is located in the center of town so it is easy to access. Not to be missed if you are in Ulm!

After hearing about the treasures in a magnificent baroque palace very near our hotel, we decided…read moreto invest part of our Saturday in Augsburg there. The first disappointment was not being able to buy the tickets with our credit card - another sign that those in charge of some tourist attractions in Germany are still very provincial. We opted for the audio guide - a big mistake. Audio guides should be a help for visitors to see things they might miss, but this guide was full of names and dates without nearly enough info about the actual pictures we were looking at or the rooms we walked through. Too much of the art museum seemed to be in a state or renovation with poorly lit paintings in the gallery part and a weird kind of open heating system spewing out smoke in the monastery part attached to the palace. Distracted by all the oddities, we ended up missing one of the most famous paintings: Albrecht Dürer's portrait of Jakob Fugger, a very rich merchant from Augsburg's time in the limelight in the 16th century. Only from the outside could we appreciate the length of the structure with the palace-monastery extension taking up an entire big block. At least the rococo ballroom with its mirrors and gilt walls was impressive, maybe especially so since we were there alone on a brilliantly sunny Saturday in early February. At least we could imagine the room also impressing Marie Antoinette, who evidently danced here for the palace-warming party a few hundred years ago. After an hour, we'd seen the whole place but then had to wait for someone to open up the room where we had to leave our bags. The café seemed more a parody with the couple of small tables and very uncomfortable looking chairs in a room next to the bookstore/ticket office, so we chose instead to rest our feet and our ears in the sunshine outside gazing at the gardens, which themselves seemed somewhat modest for a magnificent baroque palace, but then we had lowered our expectations sufficiently by the end of our hour in the Schaetzlerpalais.