Springtime in Germany?

We are considering a family trip to Germany the last week of March and first week of April- what kind of weather could we expect? Would all the normal tourist sights be open? Crowded? Less crowded than summer?

We plan to visit Berlin, Cologne, Munich, Garmisch etc.

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You could get nice weather, but it is sensible to be prepared for rain.

Crowds would be less than in the summer. Tourist sights tend to operate with two schedules. The winter schedule runs from when the clocks change in the fall to when they change in the spring.

Easter Sunday and Monday are holidays and effect rail travel and museum hours and most shops will be closed.

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We visited Franconia last year for the first two weeks of April. We had mild sunny days, rainy days and a bit of snow that did not stick.

It was not crowded, rooms were easy to get on a day by day basis.

There might have been shortened hours on tourists sights (not sure) but everything that we wanted to see was open. We were not in the Alps where weather might be a factor.

We found it a good time to travel, except that everything was still grey. The trees and flowers were just budding and blooming as we left.

Regards, Gary

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That is one of my least favorite times in Germany. It%26#39;s not really winter or spring, and you don%26#39;t have the nice things of either season. As Trikist mentioned, Spring was late last year and did not begin until the middle of April. There is now a tree (almond?) flowering across the street here in Stuttgart and in Oberschwaben the bulbs have put out leaves. This year was a warm fall and winter so far (no snow) and few temperatures below freezing, so it%26#39;s hard to predict what the weather will be like in late March and early April as the weather is not typical. I personally prefer February because of the likelihood of snow at higher elevations and late April-May when spring has definitely arrived and you can have a beer in the beer gardens under flowering chestnut trees and there are the special asparagus menus in restaurants.

All tourist sights should be open and there should definitely be fewer tourists. It would be a good time to visit places that are packed with tourists in the summer. On the other hand, there are a lot of excellent places you can visit in summer which have few tourists if you stay away from American-tourist Germany.

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