9 Best Things to do in Lower Saxony | Top Tourist Attractions

Want to explore and discover what’s in the northwest part of Germany? Lower Saxony is a captivating state with many wonderful spots and hidden gems waiting to be discovered. A variety of great things to do in Lower Saxony! This wonderful state has many spectacular sites to offer, from its cultural attractions, historical sites, museums, and romantic destinations not to miss.

The beauty of Lower Saxony is beyond what you see in photos and videos. To reach and walk to the baroque-style churches, castles, and gardens completes a one-of-a-kind adventure in Germany. 

Interested? Check out the list of Lower Saxony’s best attractions to discover on your travel.

Things to do in Lower Saxony & Places to Visit

Heide Park Resort

Address: Heide Park 1, 29614 Soltau, Germany

The Heide Park is a theme park located in Soltau, Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the largest theme park in Northern Germany and one of the largest in Germany. The park is owned by Merlin Entertainments, a British entertainment company that runs several locations similar to Heide Park in different places around the world.

The site on which the park is built used to belong to the Heidenhof Wildlife Park. The present Heide Park was opened in 1978 and offered just six rides.

The park has several attractions, but most of them are built for children between 3-10 years old. The attractions feature themes from popular children’s movies and shows such as How To Train Your Dragon, Peppa Pig Land, and Ghostbusters.

There is also an adventure hotel at the park, which has uniquely designed interactive rooms, with each room having a different theme from the others. A holiday camp allows guests to have an all-around experience when they stay at one of the park’s several huts.

The camp has several facilities including for sportspeople interested in football or volleyball. Apart from the attractions for kids, there are also provisions for older people to have some fun.

There are six gigantic roller coasters, including Germany’s biggest wooden roller coaster for those brave enough to get on them. There are also provisions for people who get hungry while at the park ranging from simple snacks to whole meals at the various food stalls around the park. The park is also near to some establishments like restaurants and breweries in Germany.

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Schwindequelle

Address: Zur Schwindequelle, 21388 Soderstorf, Germany

The Schwindequelle is a spring located in Soderstorf, a municipality in Lower Saxony, Germany. The spring, which is found on the Lundberg Health Nature Park grounds, is one of the several natural wonders of Lower Saxony and attracts many tourists.

It is a magnificent natural spring with several unique properties, and due to that, it has been a protected location since 1936. The spring pushes out about 60 liters of water every second, making it Lower Saxony’s second richest spring – the first is the Rhyme spring located in the Harz mountain region.

The Schwindequelle is exceptionally clear, and visitors to the spring pool can witness the water gushing out from beneath the sandy bed and leaving deposits of iron oxide and magnesium oxide in its wake.

The spring is also essential to the wildlife in the surrounding area as it maintains a constant temperature of 9 degrees Celsius, and it doesn’t freeze over even in winter, which makes it a readily available body of water to animals in the area when every other body of water freezes over.

Tourists and visitors to the Lundberg Health Nature Park can take a stroll to the Schwindequelle and watch as the clear spring gushes out water. There’s also a veritable collection of wildlife in the area, which makes the experience all the more worth it. There is also a cafe nearby for people who want to get a beverage or snack.

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Herrenhausen Gardens

Address: Herrenhäuser Str. 4, 30419 Hannover, Germany

The Herrenhausen Gardens in Hannover, Germany, is a garden consisting of four gardens, courtesy of the former Kings of Hannover.

The gardens go back over 300 years to 1676 and are among Germany’s most important tourist attractions.
The Herrenhausen Gardens comprises four different gardens, the Georgengarten, the Welfengarten, the Berggarten, and the Great Garden.

The Great Garden and the Berggarten were largely the product of the work of Sophia of Hannover, who was Electress of Hannover at the time. The Great Garden was a project she commissioned in 1683 for an existing garden to be enlarged and turned into a retreat garden.

The Berggarten was once a vegetable garden attached to the Herrenhäuser castle. In 1686 Sophia of Hannover turned the vegetable garden into a display of several exotic plants, and eventually, a conservatory would be established there.

Today visitors can walk around the gardens and experience the same views the royalty experienced 300 years ago. The Baroque gardens contain flower beds designed with an opulence peculiar to that period in history and style of construction.

There are several attractions wherever you happen to be in the gardens, including several sculptures and a Great Fountain which rises to an impressive 70 meters. The Welfengarten is today a part of the University of Hannover.

High-profile events occasionally take place at the gardens, like when in 2016 German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed US President Barack Obama for a visit to Germany in the Great Garden. 

There are many great things to do in this lovely town of Lower Saxony and in Bavaria, Cologne, Berlin, things to do in Mannheim, and other towns in Germany.

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Bentheim Castle

Address: Schloßstraße, 48455 Bad Bentheim, Germany

The Bentheim Castle is a castle from the early medieval period located on a hill in Bad Bentheim, Germany’s Lower Saxony region. The castle’s history begins in the 11th century when it is mentioned as owned by Count Otto of Northeim in 1020.

The castle is located on a protrusion of the Teutoburger forest, located close to it; the elevated position made it a naturally great location to build a castle. It sits on a quarry of Bentheim sandstone, an excellent building material used in the castle’s construction.

It is a popular tourist location, and several activities are possible. There is a virtual tour of the castle available on the website of the Bentheim Castle. There is also a tournament organized every May for the Bad Bentheim’s Knights in a re-enactment of scenes from medieval times.

There is also a nightly tour of the Bentheim that is offered to visitors regularly. The tour takes place at night, and the participants go through the castle with torches to light the way. The tour features pikemen, a prince, and several interesting bits of information about the castle as participants are guided through places such as the torture chamber. All told, the tour lasts an hour or thereabouts.

Several events are also possible at the Bentheim Castle today, especially weddings. Even if you can’t get a wedding done, your wedding photos can still be taken with the magnificent castle as a backdrop.See Related:Best German Christmas Markets to Visit

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Masch Park

Address: Trammplatz 2, 30159 Hannover, Germany

The Masch Park, opened in the year 1900, happened to be Hannover’s first-ever public park. The design of the park was Julius Trip’s idea. The park is situated in Trammplatz behind the new town hall and near to other lovely establishments in Hannover like shops that sell remarkable German gifts. Few kilometers away, the park is before the Neues Rathaus.

The park presents a serene, peaceful, calm atmosphere and could serve as a perfect place to meditate things through, maybe by walking the park or sitting at one of its corners. However, sitting or walking out here for too long may not be advised on a cold winter day.

The landscape occupied by the park itself isn’t really a vast, extravagant space. It’s only something little, not too far from moderate. In the park is an artificial pond positioned in the heart of the park. The park has projections and indentations. There’s also the sculpture of the Scottish Cross, made by Henry Moore.

There are many great places to visit and enjoy in Germany like Masch Park, enjoy Berlin, and experience a grand adventure of things to do in Ulm.

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Harz National Park

Address: Germany

The Harz National Park is a biosphere reserve located in Lower Saxony and Saxony Anhalt, Germany. The park was first established in the year 1990.

Two other parks came forth in 1994 and 2006, leaving the park in an awestruck view. These recreations are not to say that the former structures were destroyed and brought to a totally new style. It is simply to say that some other newer developments were made to the park.

The most recent development of the park in 2006 resulted from the merger of the old park of 1994 and the High Harz National Park of 1990. These mergers leave the park at a whopping 24,700 hectares of space.

Some animals in the parks which hardly could be found around include peregrine falcon, the white-throated dipper, the European wildcat, the Eurasian Lynx, and the black stork. The park forests include Picea abies and Sorbus aucuparia, sets of deciduous trees, etc.

There are lots of Brocken anemones growing in the park. Today’s park is home to wildly living lynx (which had in the early 19th century been banned from the park), capercaillie, wild cats, red deer, and roe deer. Aside from these, other fascinating faunas also exist in the park.

Bark Beetle infestation has in a recent times troubled the park. The Cyclone Kyrill of 2007 has troubled the park, ruining many of its parts.

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Lüneburg Heath

Address: Germany

Lüneburg Heath or Lüneburger Heide is a vast center consisting of heath, woodland, and geest. It is situated in Lower Saxony, Germany. Its name is derived from the town where it is located, Lüneburg.

In Lüneburg Heath, some unusual abiotic and biotic factors add up to make it more distinctive from other such centers. Examples of these are climate conditions, relief, geology, flora, fauna, etc. Lüneburg Heath and all that it has occurs very naturally as possible.

The territories of Lüneburg Heath occupies Celle, Heidekreis, southeast Rotenburg, Fintel, parts of Scheeβel, Harburg, Uelzen, Luchow-Dannenberg and Lüneburg districts. Distances away, by the coordinates of the compass, Lüneburg Heath is surrounded by the following: to the east by Drawehn, the west by Harburg Hills, the north by Elbe rivers, and south Aller.

Space, where Lüneburg Heath stands today, was about hundreds of thousands of years ago, surfaced by a continental ice sheet three times. That was during the Saalian Stage.

The opened center of heath, woodland, and geest is today partitioned into five natural sub-divisions: Hohe Heide, South Heath, Ostheide, Uelzen Basin and Ilmenau depression, and Luheheide. There is a Lüneburg Heath Nature Park situated in Lüneburg Heath (in the northwestern region).

The park’s heath nature reserve, built in 1921, is right there in the park center. Aside from this park, there are two other nature parks situated around Lüneburg Heath: Sudheide Nature Park and Ebufer-Drawehn Nature Park.

Visitors troop into the park today for different purposes. Some for relaxation, others for recreational and excursion purposes.

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Nanas

Address: Leibnizufer, 30159 Hannover, Germany

Nanas Leibnizufer is a center of interest, which will awe you with its landmarks, monuments, and statues. The place is situated in Leibnzufer, Hannover, in Lower Saxony, Germany.

The center displaces artworks in a unique modern cartoonish style. These artworks are called Nanas and are installed on the routes within the center, especially near the bank of the river Leine. They are colorful, playful, joyous, and maybe it’d be right to say a little naughty sculpture. They, the Nanas, were for Niki de Saint Phalle.

Just approaching the Old Town are three sculptures. There are also lots and lots of tea shops situate on the front side of the center. The public market that sells a variety of items, souvenirs, as well as wonderful German Christmas glass ornaments, situates very close to the center opens on Saturday.

It is a trading ground for both used and unused kinds of stuff at a fair enough price.

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SEA LIFE Hannover

Address: Herrenhäuser Str. 4a, 30419 Hannover, Germany

The Sea Life Hannover is an aquarium unit situated in Herrenhauser and represents various forms of sea life—fishes, turtles, etc. More precisely, some of the exact animals represented in the museum include yellow-bellied toad, European Crayfish, Atlantic Salmon, European pond turtle.

Sea Life Hannover is divided into some areas, each carrying a collection of aquatic lives. They include the following collections:

• The Leine: represents yellow-bellied toad, European Crayfish, Atlantic Salmon, European pond turtle.
• Mangroves: through the mangrove, the following aquatic animals: banded archerfish, four-eyed fish
• Ray Lagoon: In the ray lagoon are blue-spotted ribbon tail ray, gardens eel, cownose ray, longtail carpet sharks.
• Laboratory: include long-snouted seahorse, mantis shrimp, Cassiopeia,
• Coral Reef: just the Amphiprion can be found here.
• Coral Breeding: clownfish and the sea anemone can be found here.
• Shipwreck: Longhorn cowfish, leopard moray eel, red lionfish, starfish could be found in this area.
• Ocean tunnel: through the ocean tunnel, one would see exotic color fishes glitter in the water. These fishes include blacktip reef sharks, green sea turtles, whiptail stingray.

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