Münster & Countryside - Welcome

Bicycle tours that meander through forests, nature reserves, fields, and along avenues. Travelling through villages with half-timber houses and churches pleasing to the eye. Past castles, paddocks, lush-green meadows, moated castles, and rivers. Sometimes even observing from above in a hot air balloon floating almost silently along the sunset sky. The country, people, nature. This is Münsterland. History at one’s fingertips and life in all its colour. At times quiet and tranquil, at other times young and dynamic. Münsterland is a mixture and dichotomy of many things; Parkland, bucolic village life, and lively urban environs, old Kiepenkerls, young students, church princes, Anabaptists, lords of manors, tatort-detectives, and the dressage world champion. Münsterland is home to the great lyricist Annette von Droste Hülshoff and paradise to dreamers and curiosity seekers. There’s place for pause and places for action. Be it hiking through forests, tasting hearty Westphalian ham in rustic rural pubs, or admiring ecclesiastical architecture of centuries past and sensing its piety that defines the region to this day; each place in Münsterland tells its own stories in its own way. But caution! A “rush and push” approach to Münsterland fits neither the mentality of the locals nor the multifacetedness of Münster, a multifacetedness that awaits the visitor and pleasantly surprises even the locals again and again. One must take one’s time to discover and appreciate this wonderful region. Take in the conservative way of life, enjoy the silence in the shadows of an old cottage, feel the mild winds blowing over the fields, or take part in the excitement of local festivals. Go ahead and experience the cosmopolitan nature of one of the largest German universities over a glass of dark beer filled with fruit in a student bar, paddle in a canoe along the gentle moving Ems, or whisper to the countless horses grazing in the countryside. Follow your nose and enjoy a smoked “Mettendken” sausage, admire the cottage gardens, take pause upon the wayside crosses, look on as the ships sail by on the canal, peer over the edge of the balloon basket to admire the flat landscape of Münsterland, or down an ice-cold schnapps with friends. In Münsterland, sometimes the “quiet” and the “loud” are inseparable. Many things, in which one must absolutely discover whenever travelling through this liveable and relaxing region, are covered in this book. Have fun and enjoy!