Car Tourism in Germany

ABOVE: VW Phaeton assembly at Volkswagen's "Transparent Factory" in Dresden.. INSET BELOW: A hairpin corner at the Nürburgring, which offers heartpounding rides by race taxi, and the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart.

Germans love their cars, and automotive cognoscenti love Germany. Go anywhere in the country, and you're never distant from a car museum, factory tour, or racetrack.

You don't even have to drive to reach most attractions, thanks to a nationwide high-speed rail system--and when you do drive, you can put the hammer down and forget about speed limits on many sections of Germany's fabled Autobahn network.

For more information about "Car Country Germany" (to use a nickename coined by the German Tourist Board), read the illustrated Europe for Visitors articles below:

BMW Factory Tour, Regensburg

Gottlieb Daimler Memorial, Stuttgart

Mercedes-Benz Museum, Stuttgart

Nürburgring Racetrack

'Trabi Safari' Tours, Dresden and Berlin

Volkswagen's Transparent Factory, Dresden

Volkswagen's Autostadt, Wolfsburg

1st inset photo: Nürburgring GmbH / Photoagentur Urner
2nd inset photo: Mercedes-Benz Museum.