45km (28 miles) NE of Hannover, 111km (69 miles) SE of Bremen, 117km (73 miles) S of Hamburg

The well-preserved town of Celle stands at the edge of a silent expanse of moorland, looking like something out of a picture book. Its ancient half-timbered houses were untouched by the war. Look for the wooden beams on the facades of the houses, which are often engraved with biblical quotations. Most of the houses date from the 16th and 17th centuries -- the oldest was built in 1526 -- but they're in such good condition that they could have been constructed in the 1900s.