Things to do in Essen

Landmark · Katernberg / Stoppenberg

The coal mine and coking plant that UNESCO listed in 2001 — Shaft XII is the Bauhaus-influenced pithead that became the region's symbol.

Local tip: Do not treat it as a museum visit. The site is a public park you can walk into freely, the Ruhr Museum sits inside the former coal washing plant, and in winter the coking plant's quenching channel is flooded and frozen into a 150-metre ice rink between the ovens.

Nature · Werden / Bredeney, southern Essen

A reservoir on the Ruhr in the wooded south of the city, ringed by sailing clubs, beer gardens and forest paths.

Local tip: The BaldeneySteig loops the lake and links onward to the Kettwiger Panoramasteig — roughly 60 km of waymarked walking that never leaves the city boundary. Take the S6 to Werden and walk back; almost no visitor realises this is inside Essen.

Neighborhood · South of the centre

The city's café, bar and restaurant spine along Rüttenscheider Straße — universally 'die Rü'.

Local tip: This is where Essen actually goes out, and it is where rents are highest: roughly EUR 10.50–11.80 per square metre against a city average well below that. Live one street back from the Rü rather than on it — the trams run down the middle and the bars run late.

Culture · Bredeney, above the Baldeneysee

The Krupp family's 19th-century house above the lake — over 260 rooms, in a 28-hectare park.

Local tip: The park is the point as much as the house. Go on a weekday, walk down through the grounds to the lake afterwards, and read the Krupp historical exhibition in the smaller building rather than skipping it — it is unusually frank about the firm's use of forced labour.

Neighborhood · South-west Essen

A garden suburb founded in 1909 by Margarethe Krupp and laid out by Georg Metzendorf — a listed, still-lived-in company town.

Local tip: Walk in under the stone gate bridge and the traffic noise stops. It is a working residential neighbourhood, not a monument, and flats come up through the Margarethe Krupp foundation rather than the portals — worth registering with directly if you want to live here.

Culture · Südviertel

One of Germany's most important collections of 19th and 20th century art, in a David Chipperfield extension opened in 2010.

Local tip: Entry to the permanent collection is free, paid for by the Krupp foundation — an unusual arrangement in Germany, and it means you can drop in for twenty minutes on a wet afternoon without the sunk-cost feeling. The photography holdings are outstanding and consistently overlooked.