I’m coming to have a look

Willows, Woods, Wildlife – that’s the WWW for the Lower Rhine region. But this flat land also has protruding landscapes; the Hinsbeck and Sonsbeck mountain ranges (near the Alps). You can also dive to the depths in the Blue Lagoon or South Lake – for the Lower Rhine region is very diverse, has a great deal to offer and has become an interesting region for tourists.

Natural surroundings

Lush meadows with black pied cattle, gnarled pastures with small rivers and streams, all under an endless sky that’s sometimes blue, sometimes cloudy and sometimes grey – that’s the picture many people have of the Lower Rhine region in their heads. Yet it is much more than that: expansive woods near Kleve (Reichswald) and from Straelen to Niederkrüchten (Grenzwald), moor landscapes, mountain ranges (up to nearly 100 meters), lake plateaus at Nette and Schwalm, Altrheinarme (Bislich Island), agriculture, horticulture, fruit-growing. The natural surroundings are worthy of protection in many areas; hence the natural preserve Schwalm-Nette on the left of the Rhine, with one of the largest nature protection areas in North-Rhine Westphalia round Krickenbeck castle, and on the right side of the Rhine the Hohe Mark natural preserve in the Lipper Land. And because the countryside is nice and flat, the Lower Rhine region is ideal for short and long cycling trips. There are many different routes which are all clearly signposted and marked on maps.

History

The Romans were among the first tourists to come to the Lower Rhine region. They made the countryside accessible for farming with their roads. You can still see the remains of the Roman settlement, especially in the Archaeological Park in Xanten and its new and extensive Roman Museum. Subsequent rulers left the Lower Rhine with castles in Kleve, Kempen and Linn and palaces at Dyck and Wissen, the fortress Zons and the magnificent town of Wachtendonk. The citadel in Wesel (with the new Prussian Museum) is reminiscent of Prussia. In Kleve there are still signs that the Brandenburg Governor Johann Moritz von Nassau-Siegen developed the town into one of the most renowned garden and park towns in Europe in the middle of the 17th century. Berlin’s magnificent and historic avenue Unter den Linden was designed in Kleve.

Culture

The Lower Rhine region is home to important 20th century artists. Heinrich Campendonk shaped Rhineland Expressionism (Villa Merländer, Krefeld; Clemens-Sels Museum, Neuss), Ewald Mataré a whole generation of sculptors (Museum Kurhaus, Kleve). His most prominent student was Joseph Beuys, one of the most important German artists in the second half of the last century. You see his works at every turn in the Lower Rhine region: in the Moyland Kleve Castle, in the Kaiser-Wilhelm Museum Krefeld and in the Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach. The area round the Museum Insel Hombroich (near Neuss), with its former NATO missile base and the Langen Foundation, became a unique field of experimentation: this is the home of the ‘Raumortlabor Hombroich’ project, an experimental architecture and landscape development.

Churches

The King‘s son Siegfried will hardly have been aware of the Roman legionnaire Victor, who was executed in the fourth century in the castra vetera (Birten), when he set off up the Rhine from Xanten to free Kriemhild. Siegfried was immortalized in The Song of the Nibelungs, Victor lives on in the church erected from 1260, the largest cathedral between Cologne and the sea. Not far away stands another legacy of the Christian faith: the St. Nicholas Church in Kalkar with its carved altars from the 16th century. Alongside the Chapel of Grace, the Basilica in Kevelaer is one of the main pilgrimage locations for the approximately one million pilgrims and the largest Saint Mary pilgrimage site in north-western Europe.

The Münster Minster on the Abteiberg (‘Monastery Mountain‘) in Mönchengladbach and the St. Quirinus Minster in Neuss are also significant historically. Kempen has set up the Lower Rhine Museum of Sacred Art in a former Franciscan Monastery, the Marienthal Minster (Hamminkeln) is a center of modern sacred art.

Lifestyle

But the Lower Rhine offers light-hearted fun too, for example at the shooting fair in Neuss, the largest far and wide, or at the carnival in Dülken, with its bock windmill and Moon University. One can rediscover old handicrafts at the historical market in Linn or observe the street painters in Geldern. You can have a hearty meal or enjoy exquisite hospitality: the Michelin and Gault Millaut testers have often found culinary finesse at its very best, and also agree that the “Traube” in Grevenbroich is the finest. And if you really want to be extravagant, you can go snowboarding or skiing in the middle of the summer at the Neuss indoor slopes hall – no need to go as far as the Alps.

Initiatives

Niederrhein Tourismus GmbH: tourism has developed into an important sector in the Lower Rhine region in the last two decades. The value added is calculated to be around 850 million euros in the districts Kleve, Viersen and Wesel and the city of Krefeld, which have all combined their services within Niederrhein Tourismus GmbH. It has made the Rhine, Niers and Lippe region so popular that in 2008, for the first time, more than two million overnight stays (an increase of 10.3 percent) were counted (not including the 200,000 Arctic wild geese that regularly spend the winter in the “Düffelt” meadows along the Rhine near Kranenburg – also a magnet for tourists). The ADAC lists the Lower Rhine region as one of the top ten German cycling landscapes.

2-country travels: the online reservation portal designed with the Euregios Rhine-Maas-Nord and Rhine-Waal offers cross-border holidays: bike trips, spa holidays, group holidays – including along the St. Jacob’s Path on the Lower Rhine. I’m off then.

Links

• Niederrhein Tourismus
• 2-Land-Reisen
• Genussregion Niederrhein
• Gastronomie Niederrhein
• Cool Breaks

Contact

Bertram Gaiser
Geschäftsführer
Standort Niederrhein GmbH
02131 / 92 68 592
gaiser@standort-niederrhein.de

Rolf Adolphs
Geschäftsführer

Niederrhein Tourismus GmbH
Willy-Brandt-Ring 13
41747 Viersen
021 62 / 81 79 03
info@niederrhein-tourismus.de