Mettmann: City History, Art and Urban Forest

Visitors choosing Mettmann as a destination will find a range of points of interest: city history, visual art and outdoor activities in the urban forest. The Neanderthal Museum and the Evolution Trail are also among the local attractions. When choosing a hotel in Mettmann, it helps to first consider the places you plan to visit. The following sites differ considerably in subject and scale.

City History and Visual Art

At the City History House, visitors can learn about more than a thousand years of Mettmann’s history across three floors. The story ranges from the early long-distance road “strata coloniensis” and the construction of the royal court in the time of Charlemagne to the present day. Here, you can encounter different periods of the city’s history in one place, rather than focusing on just a single period.

Kunsthaus Mettmann organizes around twelve exhibitions and visual arts events each year. These include funded and private exhibitions featuring artists from Germany and abroad. The range spans painting and sculpture to photography, object art and video art. If you are interested in a particular medium, it is worth checking the current program: the number refers to the annual offering, not the dates of individual exhibitions.

Urban Forest: Activity, Nature and Swimming

The recreational facility in the urban forest brings together a variety of attractions: a skate park, climbing wall, beach volleyball court and dirt-bike track, as well as barbecue areas, a garden for children and an insect house. Additional attractions for children round out the offering. The facility therefore provides a range of activities, from getting active on the track or court to nature-related attractions and places to spend time together.

At the recreational facility, children meet for the “On the Trail of Nature” program to explore and investigate the surrounding area. The natural outdoor pool in the middle of Mettmann’s urban forest also offers swimming without chemical additives. It adds another way to spend time in the urban forest to the activities on land.

Museum and Evolution Trail

The Neanderthal Museum offers a range of guided tours for adults and special tours for groups of children. If a tour is part of your plans, check the museum’s current booking details. The “Mettmann Evolution Trail” creates a richly staged connection between the Neanderthal city of Mettmann and the Neanderthal Museum. The museum and trail therefore offer different experiences: the guided tours take center stage at the museum, while the trail connects the city and the museum.

More Destinations in the Mettmann District

Beyond the city of Mettmann, the district has other distinct destinations to explore. In Baumberg, a district of Monheim am Rhein, the former Roman fort of Haus Bürgel is located in the Urdenbacher Kämpe nature reserve. Its history goes back around 2,000 years. Today, Haus Bürgel combines a Roman museum, a biological station and a horse farm that breeds cold-blooded horses. In Wülfrath, the Time Tunnel combines an exhibition venue with an engaging presentation of geological history; the experience is described as suitable for children and adults.

The district’s attractions also vary in subject: the German Museum of Locks and Fittings in Velbert displays around 1,000 exhibits and takes visitors through 4,000 years of ingenuity in the service of security. Interactive and multimedia stations, along with working models, invite visitors to try things out. In Ratingen, the LVR-Industriemuseum Textilfabrik Cromford uses original 18th-century buildings to tell the story of the early industrialization era from 1750 to 1850. The focus is on the history of the Brügelmann cotton spinning mill, described as the first factory on the European continent.

Hikes for Different Amounts of Time

There are also hikes of different lengths in the district. The neanderland STEIG is almost 240 kilometers long and circles the entire Mettmann district in 17 stages. A shorter option in the wider travel area is the signposted A 3 – Junkernbusch circular trail: it is about 3.4 kilometers long, and you should allow around an hour for the hike. These figures make the difference in time commitment clear without suggesting the routes are equivalent. Check the latest route details before planning a hike.

Discover more travel destinations: Velbert, Ratingen, Mettmann, Langenfeld, Hilden, Heiligenhaus, Haan, Erkrath, Monheim am Rhein, Wülfrath

Go to the main travel overview: North Rhine-Westphalia.