Zeche Zollverein

The Ruhr Area is home to around 5.1 million people across 11 independent cities and 4 districts, including Duisburg, Essen, Bochum, and Dortmund. For over a century, coal and steel shaped the region, and in December 2018, Prosper-Haniel in Bottrop, Germany's last hard coal mine, ceased operations.Today, its industrial history is a major travel theme. The Route of Industrial Heritage connects the most important sites, especially the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2001. At Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, you can climb a blast furnace, and from Gasometer Oberhausen, you look out over the western Ruhr Area from a height of 117 meters. In 2010, the Ruhr Area was the European Capital of Culture.

The Gasometer Oberhausen is 117 meters high and measures almost 68 meters in diameter. It was built between 1927 and 1929 as a gas holder, and was operational until 1988. Since its conversion in 1993/94, it has been considered Europe's highest exhibition hall, with approximately 7,000 square meters across three levels.You can reach the roof by external lift or via 592 steps. On a clear day, the view extends up to 35 kilometers over the western Ruhr area.

An approximately 180-hectare park has emerged around an ironworks founded by August Thyssen in 1902 in Duisburg-Meiderich. The last blast furnace ceased operation in 1985, and the site has been publicly accessible since 1994.You can climb Blast Furnace 5 up to a viewing platform at a height of around 70 meters. In the former ore bunker, the Duisburg section of the Alpine Club has set up a climbing garden with approximately 400 routes and a via ferrata, and an old gasometer with 20,000 cubic meters of water serves as a diving center. In the evenings, Jonathan Park's light installation bathes the complex in colorful light.

Düsseldorf is the state capital of North Rhine-Westphalia and, with around 642,000 inhabitants, the second-largest city in the state. Its Old Town on the Rhine, with its many pubs, is known as the "longest bar in the world," where Altbier from local breweries like Uerige, Füchschen, Schumacher, and Schlüssel is served.The car-free Rhine embankment promenade connects the Old Town with the MedienHafen (Media Harbour), where Frank Gehry's buildings of the Neuer Zollhof stand, and right next to them, the approximately 240-meter-high Rheinturm (Rhine Tower) rises. On the Königsallee, with its canal, luxury shops line up, and the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (Art Collection North Rhine-Westphalia) exhibits 20th-century art in K20.

Münsterland, in the northwest of Westphalia, is a flat landscape of fields, pastures, small woodlands, and hedgerows, known as the Münsterland Park Landscape. Typical features are moated castles and palaces such as Burg Vischering, Schloss Nordkirchen, or Burg Anholt. The region comprises the districts of Borken, Coesfeld, Steinfurt, and Warendorf, as well as the city of Münster.Because the terrain is so flat, the best way to explore the area is by bike, for instance, on the 100 Castles Route, which links the region's castles and stately homes. The focal point is Münster, the only major city in Münsterland, featuring the Prinzipalmarkt, Cathedral, and the Friedenssaal, where history was made in 1648.