Top 20 Dortmund Attractions

Dort­mund is the cen­ter of min­ing, steel and beer pro­duc­tion in Ger­many. But all over the world it is known pri­mar­i­ly for beer and the famous sports club Borus­sia. At first glance, Dort­mund is rough, like all indus­tri­al cities, but close acquain­tance reveals its charm­ing inner world.

Who and why should come to Dortmund

This city on the Rhine is vis­it­ed in large num­bers by foot­ball fans. Dort­mund is home to Borus­sia Dort­mund, a pop­u­lar Ger­man club. The entire sports infra­struc­ture of the city offers not only to vis­it the match of your favorite team, but also to try your hand at dif­fer­ent sports.

The old city is the cen­ter of archi­tec­ture and indus­try. It will be of inter­est to his­to­ri­ans and con­nois­seurs of the beau­ty of ancient build­ings. Cathe­drals, church­es and medieval cas­tles are beau­ti­ful in Dort­mund.

Parks, embank­ments, chil­dren’s enter­tain­ment and edu­ca­tion­al cen­ters, many play­grounds, muse­ums, zoos and oth­er infra­struc­ture for chil­dren make Dort­mund attrac­tive for fam­i­lies with chil­dren.

Historical landmarks and architecture

old town hall

The town hall was built at the end of the 19th cen­tu­ry right in the cen­ter of Dort­mund on Peace Square. As befits strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant objects, it is dec­o­rat­ed with the coat of arms of the city and belongs to the munic­i­pal­i­ty. A sim­i­lar build­ing had already been erect­ed at the same place. The cur­rent one is a kind of suc­ces­sor to it. The build­ing has an exhi­bi­tion hall, which is made of mir­ror and steel struc­ture.

St. Peter’s Church

The build­ing belongs to the Evan­gel­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty of Ger­many. Since ancient times, St. Peter’s Church has been called the “Gold­en Mir­a­cle of West­phalia”. The Petrikirch­hof was built in the Mid­dle Ages. It has a square shape and a high spire that reach­es 105 meters.

The altar of the cathe­dral is its main rel­ic. Once it was brought here from Antwerp and dec­o­rat­ed with gild­ed sculp­tures. In the open state on the altar, you can see the stages of the way of the cross of Jesus Christ. In the closed — scenes of the Eucharist.

Eagle Tower

The recon­struct­ed medieval build­ing used to be part of the city wall and was part of the com­plex of city for­ti­fi­ca­tions. It reach­es a height of 30 meters and is installed on pil­lars that do not allow the foun­da­tion to sag. The build­ing has six floors with small win­dows.

Today, his­tor­i­cal exhi­bi­tions are held with­in the walls of the tow­er. The muse­um col­lec­tion con­sists of Ger­man house­hold items, cloth­ing and weapons.

Delvig’s house

Delvig’s house is called a cas­tle on the water. For the first time this build­ing is men­tioned in the annals of the XIII cen­tu­ry. The build­ing was built for the knight Her­man von Delvig. One of the last own­ers of the fam­i­ly cas­tle was the wid­ow of George Arnold Delvig, who lived in the 17th cen­tu­ry.

Today this build­ing is the prop­er­ty of the city. It is rent­ed out to a pri­vate per­son, there­fore there are no tours on the ter­ri­to­ry of the build­ing — only in the local his­to­ry muse­um locat­ed near­by.

Wasserburg Anholt Castle

Once the own­er of this cas­tle was the Duke of Salm, who ruled the coun­try in the XIV cen­tu­ry. The archi­tects did their best with the design of the build­ing — its facade is made in the Baroque style. Today, on the ter­ri­to­ry of Wasser­burg-Anholt, there is a hotel on one side and a muse­um on the oth­er.

The hotel rooms are made in medieval style. It seems that every­thing here is rem­i­nis­cent of the times of knights and beau­ti­ful ladies: antique sofas, crock­ery and oth­er out­landish items. On the ter­ri­to­ry of the cas­tle there is a reserve in which deer, pheas­ants and oth­er ani­mals roam freely.

Church of St. Rinald

Pre­vi­ous­ly, the church was Catholic, but today it belongs to the Evan­gel­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty of Ger­many. In pre-war times, the tem­ple was a mag­nif­i­cent build­ing, the first stone of which was laid back in the Mid­dle Ages. The Ger­mans con­sid­er this attrac­tion a sym­bol of the Hanseat­ic city.

The archi­tec­tur­al style of the build­ing is diverse: Romanesque and Goth­ic trends are mixed togeth­er here. The high­light of St. Rinald’s Church is the organ donat­ed to the cathe­dral by the Wal­ck­er firm.

Cultural attractions and museums

Brauerei-Museum (Museum of Brewing)

This authen­tic muse­um is not imme­di­ate­ly found in the city — only a mod­est flag hangs at the entrance, indi­cat­ing the pres­ence of a pri­vate brew­ing col­lec­tion in the house. The Brauerei-Muse­um was found­ed in the ear­ly 80s of the last cen­tu­ry. Pre­vi­ous­ly, the build­ing housed the machine shop of the Hansa brew­ery.

At first, the col­lec­tion was rather didac­tic, edu­ca­tion­al. The gen­er­al pub­lic learned about the exis­tence of the muse­um only in 2006, when it was opened for the sec­ond time after being bought by a new own­er. Today, excur­sions are held here, and steam mech­a­nisms and logos of var­i­ous brew­eries have appeared among the exhibits.

Cookbook Museum

The unique muse­um, which has no ana­logues in the world, is called “the most deli­cious” in Ger­many. It was found­ed rel­a­tive­ly recent­ly — a lit­tle over 30 years ago. The muse­um can­not boast of an impres­sive his­to­ry, but this is not at all valu­able.

Basi­cal­ly, the muse­um’s col­lec­tion is rep­re­sent­ed by the recipes of Frau Davidis, the com­pil­er of the cult Ger­man cook­book and sim­ply a leg­endary per­son­al­i­ty. Among the exhibits there are also old stoves and kitchen uten­sils.

On week­ends and hol­i­days, the orga­niz­ers often hold exhi­bi­tions and lec­tures on food cul­ture and healthy food.

Opera theatre

This the­ater is one of the largest in Ger­many. Its orig­i­nal ver­sion built in 1904 was destroyed dur­ing World War II. The build­ing was restored in the 60s. Design­ers have devel­oped a new project in a futur­is­tic style — now the unusu­al roof of the opera attracts the atten­tion of vis­i­tors.

German Football Museum

No oth­er city in Ger­many prob­a­bly has such a sig­nif­i­cant foot­ball his­to­ry. Dort­mund’s sport­ing tra­di­tions are embod­ied in the col­lec­tion of the muse­um, which was built oppo­site the rail­way sta­tion.

Among the exhibits are the equip­ment of the Borus­sia team, mod­els of the first sta­di­ums, the his­to­ry of the World Cham­pi­onships. The main mass of vis­i­tors, of course, are fans who come to the city after their favorite teams.

Hansa Coke Plant

The plant is an indus­tri­al land­mark of Dort­mund. It was built just in the peri­od of indus­tri­al hey­day — in the 30s of the last cen­tu­ry. Today it is a cul­tur­al cen­ter, which many tourists and guests of the city tend to vis­it.

The work­ers of the plant intro­duce vis­i­tors to the tech­nol­o­gy of cok­ing coal pro­duc­tion, and also offer to explore heavy mech­a­nisms in order to under­stand the prin­ci­ple of their oper­a­tion.

Ostwall

It con­tains a col­lec­tion of con­tem­po­rary art. The repos­i­to­ry was found­ed in the 40s of the last cen­tu­ry, but ini­tial­ly it was based in a dif­fer­ent build­ing. In 2010, a spe­cial U‑shaped tow­er struc­ture was built for the Ost­wall Muse­um.

Among the exhibits of the muse­um are pho­tographs, paint­ings, sculp­tures of famous fig­ures of the 20th cen­tu­ry: Otto Müller, Ernst Kirch­n­er, Emil Nold. In addi­tion to Ger­man painters, works by Pablo Picas­so, Marc Cha­gall, Sal­vador Dali and Wass­i­ly Kandin­sky are exhib­it­ed.

Mine-museum “Workshop Zollern”

Exter­nal­ly, the build­ing of this indus­tri­al facil­i­ty is more like a cas­tle: mag­nif­i­cent Byzan­tine archi­tec­ture, domed roofs, impos­ing half-tim­bered hous­es. Designed by Paul Knobbe.

After the object was put into oper­a­tion, it was giv­en the nick­name “Cas­tle of Labor”. And this was true. Coal was mined in the mine from the end of the 19th cen­tu­ry to the mid­dle of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Today on its ter­ri­to­ry there is a muse­um ded­i­cat­ed to the social and cul­tur­al his­to­ry of the coun­try.

Interesting places

old market

South of the West­en­höl­weg shop­ping street is the city mar­ket. The square in front of it is filled with all sorts of sights. Atten­tion is drawn to the lux­u­ri­ous foun­tain, made of brass.

Accord­ing to his­tor­i­cal data, Ger­man mer­chants used to form a guild around the mar­ket. They also lived in near­by hous­es. Since the 15th cen­tu­ry, a build­ing has been erect­ed on the square, in which the head­quar­ters of one of the old­est brew­eries in Ger­many, Wenkers, was based. Today, the mar­ket is the venue for fes­tive events at Christ­mas.

TV tower Florianturm

Locat­ed on the ter­ri­to­ry of West­falen­park. The build­ing reach­es a height of just over 200 meters. Its main fea­ture is the pres­ence of an obser­va­tion deck — from it tourists admire the city.

The Flo­ri­anturm was built in the mid­dle of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Then, even before the con­struc­tion of sky­scrap­ers, it was con­sid­ered the high­est in the coun­try. In the 2000s, when bungee jump­ing was pop­u­lar, the tow­er housed a cen­ter for pro­vid­ing spe­cial equip­ment for extreme sports­men. How­ev­er, after an acci­dent, jump­ing was banned.

Westenhelveg street

Trav­el­ers and guests of the city do not need to look for this street for a long time — it pass­es near the cen­tral sta­tion. Since ancient times, West­en­helveg has been the main trade route of Dort­mund, found­ed by Charle­magne. And today there are numer­ous bou­tiques and shops where you can stock up on sou­venirs, a lot of restau­rants, cafes, which are filled to capac­i­ty with vis­i­tors in the evenings.

Sta­tis­tics say that this street is the busiest in Ger­many. A few years ago, a kind of record was reg­is­tered here — 13,000 peo­ple passed through West­en­helveg in an hour.

Signal Iduna Park

Since the 60s of the last cen­tu­ry, the local team of Borus­sia need­ed its own sta­di­um, but its con­struc­tion was con­stant­ly delayed due to lack of funds. Things got off the ground ten years lat­er — and then only when the city had to host the World Cup.

The are­na was built in the short­est pos­si­ble time — in less than three years. Today it is the home ground of the club, where meet­ings of teams at the high­est lev­el are held.

Parks and squares

Westfalenpark

Dort­mund itself is locat­ed in the his­tor­i­cal part of Ger­many — West­fal­i­ca. The park was so named due to its geo­graph­i­cal loca­tion. Today it is con­sid­ered one of the best in the coun­try. It was found­ed at the end of the 19th cen­tu­ry by wealthy cit­i­zens of the city. Land­scap­ing has been going on for sev­er­al years.

In the 60s, for the first time, a hor­ti­cul­tur­al exhi­bi­tion was held on the ter­ri­to­ry of the reserve. At the same time, a lot of new things appeared in the park: a chil­dren’s rail­way, rope­ways. In the cen­ter of the West­falen­park is the Flo­ri­antum tow­er, which offers a won­der­ful view of the city.

romberg park

Dort­mund Park was found­ed at the begin­ning of the 19th cen­tu­ry. A large num­ber of cac­ti, suc­cu­lents, ferns, trop­i­cal plants, lemon­grass grow on its vast ter­ri­to­ry (65 hectares). Many of them are grown in green­hous­es. Romberg Park got its name from the noble Romen­berg fam­i­ly, who once owned this area.

Dortmund Zoo

The ter­ri­to­ry of the menagerie occu­pies a vast area, which is com­plete­ly cov­ered with veg­e­ta­tion along the entire perime­ter. Not only ani­mals feel at ease in the zoo. Tourists and locals come here to take a break from every­day affairs, relax and enjoy soli­tude.

The zoo con­tains more than 230 species of ani­mals and birds, includ­ing: pheas­ants, pea­cocks, owls, par­rots. All of them are allowed to feed under the super­vi­sion of the staff of the insti­tu­tion.