//
The entrance to Dortmund’s television tower called Florian is on the north side of the Westfalenpark. It costs €2.50 to catch the lift to the observation deck, in addition to the €1.50 to enter the park. At just under 220 metres, the Florianturm is the 14th highest structure in Germany and for a brief time after it was completed in 1959 it was the tallest television tower. The elevator whizzes you to the two observation decks at 140 metres in no time at all. There’s no orientation board to point out the landmarks far below, but you can use a map on your phone as a substitute. Below the lower deck is a revolving restaurant if you’d like to pause over the view for a while longer.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
Under the constant gaze of the Florianturm on the south side of Dortmund, the Westfalenpark is a paid-entry 70-hectare green space with a multitude of little attractions to keep you engaged a whole afternoon. The horticultural areas deserve a detour: The Deutsches Rosarium has 3,000 different rose varieties, but also stages annual events like the electronic Juicy Beats festival in summer and the Lichterfest (Festival of Lights) in winter. Another summer attraction is the chair lift, which opened in 1959 and runs on Sundays between a “Mountain” and “Valley” station 500 m apart. There’s also a miniature railway, a bird enclosure with flamingos and a pond where you can hire a rowboat.
The Steinturm is a protected monument and historic watchtower not far from the Westfalenhallen.
Nicolaikirche
The imposing St. Nicolai Church is the first and largest Church of the new Objectivity.
At 65 hectares, Dortmund’s botanical gardens are among the largest in the world. They are named for the Romberg family whose estate was landscaped as an English park in 1822. The park came into the city’s hands in the 1920s, and thousands of perennials, flowering plants, medicinal herbs and trees have been planted. There are four greenhouses, for tropical vegetation, succulents, ferns and a mixture of camellias, lemon trees and jasmine. The older trees from the time of the Romberg estate are some of the tallest in North Rhine-Westphalia. The perennials are worth the trip alone, boxed by yew hedges and arranged according to colour. And the herb garden is just special, planted with more than 400 plant species, producing intoxicating scents in spring and summer.