Hannover

Hannover needs 1 day: the Herrenhausen Gardens, a set of royal baroque gardens with fountains and lime-tree avenues, in a morning walk, and the New Town Hall, with a curved elevator rising to the dome for views over the whole city, in the afternoon. April-October is best. It's inexpensive by German standards. It's the capital of Lower Saxony and home to one of the world's largest industrial trade fairs, the Hannover Messe, and its Herrenhausen Gardens served as a model for other 17th-century baroque gardens among European nobility.