Tips on visiting Planet Germany

By Christoph Driessen Aug 12, 2010, 14:22 GMT

London - Foreigners visiting Germany should prepare themselves for a few things. Among them are cheap cuckoo clocks, hazardous beer gardens and nudity in the sauna. A number of travel guidebooks and other materials help foreign visitors orientate themselves in Germany.

Let's start with the simplest things. Unfortunately, the Germans don't look German. That's the first disappointment. The women aren't wearing dirndls, the men aren't in lederhosen. Tourists are most likely to see these styles in Bavaria, the classic book Culture Shock Germany says.

The good news is that cuckoo clocks can be found not only in the Black Forest, but also in any good tourist shop.

'The clocks are cheaper there than in almost any other part of the world, but be careful. There is an enormous difference in quality,' according to the 450-page Germany for Dummies. The guide contains an entire page of advice for cuckoo clock shoppers.

Cathy Dobson is the author of another guide about Germany. She informs readers that on beaches in Germany women going topless is not unusual. Sometimes people parade around in the nude. In Munich's large open space, which happens to be called the English Garden, a visitor might encounter a naked Teuton grilling a sausage.

Dobson also writes about body hair. While people in much of the rest of the world spend piles of money shaving or otherwise ridding themselves of the hair on their legs and in their armpits, it appears that many Germans fertilize these regions and let their hair grow.

All English-language travel guidebooks about Germany warn about visiting a sauna. Nudity is the norm there and in indoor swimming pools, changing rooms are often for both genders.

'In the mixed changing rooms the full horror emerges,' Dobson dramatically warns in her book.

The beer gardens are, however, downright dangerous, she writes. The benches can act like teeter-totters when the people sitting on one end stand up all at the same time. Those on the other end usually slide onto the ground. The local people are well able to deal with this situation, but for visitors it's an accident waiting to happen.

The most dangerous place is the autobahn. The only thing that counts there is the laws of aerodynamics and the rights that belong to cars with powerful engines. Dobson stresses that the left lane of the autobahn is exclusively reserved for Porsches, BMWs and Mercedes.

Another typical peculiarity is that in Germany cars are like sacred cows. Never touch a car, never lean on a car. Only worship is permitted.

When a foreigner experiences his first contact with a German, it often seems they are not overly friendly. But people shouldn't take this personally - they are just as short with their fellow Germans.

In some situations the Germans place a high value on a certain formulaic politeness. For example, when answering the phone, the expectation is that the person called will say his or her name. This is true even when the person called doesn't know who is calling and even though the caller typically doesn't say his or her name.

People confused by these curiosities can take heart that it's just the way it is. Author Greg Nees starts his book Germany - Unravelling an Enigma with the sentence: 'The Germans are not only a puzzle to the rest of the world, they are also a puzzle to themselves.'