Bochum Off The Beaten Path

Serveral ancient trees in the castle park of House Weitmar are remained from the air attack in 1943. This physical monuments with weird tops of a tree and trunks invite to a contemplative walk in the park. From the old castle ruin your walk can be continued to a marked footpath. Above a country lane the way follows along an old coal road route to the railway station Dahlhausen or to the former Dahlhauser public swimming bath at the river into in the nice Ruhr valley.

The castle ruin of House Weitmar was a fiefdom around the turn of the century. Originally it concerned a farm, the Schultenhof in Weitmar. This court is mentioned already in the 11th century. Together with the Weitmarer wood it belonged to the "Abtei Werden" (in Essen) and it was given away as a estate to nobility families. The families lived at first not even on the court, but let a farmer manage the court. In the second half of the 15th century House Weitmar became a knight's castle.

With an air attack on the 13th May, 1943 the House Weitmar was ruined. Up to the perimeter walls the old castle and the chapel - and with it also irreplaceable cultural and material values - were destroyed.

Most tourists come to Bochum just to see the musical Starlight Express and leave directly afterwards. What a pity! There is so much else to see and do!

Starlight Express has been running for years and years now and it's said to be the most successful musical in Germany. If you want to get tickets for a certain evening you should still book well from advance just to be sure to get them as the show is sold out quite frequently.
Check the Starlight Express internet page for details.

Take some time to discover the city and its suburbs. There is so much to see and to do!

Bochum is home to wonderful people.
Try to get in contact with the locals. Meet them in their pubs, during a soccer match in the stadium, or join them for inline skating at Lake Kemnade.
Have a tasty 'Doener' at a Turkish fast food place, try the lunch at the local university, or spend a bit more on a candlelight dinner in one of the many restaurants.

From my experience, many men and kids are into trains, especially those trains that make a lot of noise and produce a tremendous amount of smoke.
If you like to listen to the noise of the steam whistle, you could visit the Eisenbahnmuseum (museum for trains) in Dahlhausen, which is a small suburb of Bochum at the river Ruhr. Here you can find a number of old steam trains and everything else that is somehow related to this way of transportation.
On weekends the museum offers trips with those old trains along the river and in the summer the museum is open till late in the evening (check the homepage for dates and details) so that photo addicts can take wonderful pictures of the trains at sunset...

Adults: €5
Kids: €2.50
Families (2 adults and up to 3 kids): €13

Not sure if this is really off the beaten path, but I guess, if I came to Bochum as a total stranger, my first thought wouldn't be 'Oh, I gotta see that planetarium everybody's been telling me about!' - or would it?However, now that you know there's a planetarium in Bochum, you can go there, or have a look on their website first (or copy and paste http://www.bochum.de/english/bosehe4.htm for those whose stupid Netscape isn't able to read the link (or is it just my stupid Netscape?)).Oh, and here's the credit: Hello dear webmaster of bochum.de, I took one of your pictures. I'm not making any money with it. So please don't sue me. I thank you very much. :oD
Here's the address and stuff:
Zeiss Planetarium Bochum
Castroper Str. 67
44777 Bochum

Mo. - Fr.: 8.30 - 15.00
Tel.: 0234 / 51 60 6-13
Fax: 0234 / 51 60 6-51
e-mail: planetarium@bochum.de

Near Bochum there is a small town called
Hattingen, very beautiful old city.
Check the Hattingen page.

Near the castle ruin the rests of the Sylvesterchapel are to be seen. The precise age of the chapel is not known; as a document of 1397 testifies, it has already existed in this time, nevertheless.