Bochum
Introduction
Bochum sits on the Ruhr Heights hill chain in North Rhine-Westphalia, with the Ruhr river to its south and the Emscher to its north. It lies at the centre of the Ruhr, Germany's largest urban area, within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region, and belongs to the region of Arnsberg. Within Westphalia it is second only to Dortmund in size, and within the Ruhr it follows Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg.
The city is a major centre of higher education, home to nine institutions. The best known is Ruhr University Bochum, one of Germany's ten largest universities, alongside the Bochum University of Applied Sciences.
Before you go
Bochum sits in the Ruhr Area, the heart of German heavy industry, and its story is the region's story: a small town that grew rapidly with coal and steel, had its centre almost entirely destroyed in World War II, and was then rebuilt along "automotive city" lines. When the coal boom ended in the 1960s, the city transformed — a university opened, one of the country's largest today, and the Opel plant took on miners who had lost their jobs. Mining and steel were gone by the 1980s, and modern Bochum is a service-sector city.
Before you go, get your bearings on the landscape. Bochum straddles the flat Münsterland to the north and the Bergisches Land highlands to the south, with the Tippelsberg as its highest hill and the Ruhr valley and Lake Kemnade along its southern edge. The Ruhr valley is the region's recreation area and its water reservoir, so cleanliness rules are strict: swimming is forbidden in Lake Kemnade, swimming in the Ruhr is allowed but not advisable because of the currents, and boating is permitted throughout. As in most Ruhr cities, the southern quarters are the more affluent ones, while factories cluster in the northern half. The cities of the Ruhr are among the safest in Germany and, since the area is not yet a tourist region, are not a focus for pickpockets — but take the usual precautions and keep an eye on your camera and wallet.
Getting there
Bochum sits on the main rail line through the Ruhr Area, and its Main Station (Hauptbahnhof) is served by InterCity and ICE trains to many larger German cities. Add the short hop to nearby Dortmund or Essen and almost no part of Germany is out of reach by ICE, IC or EC services. DB trains run here, as does the budget Flixtrain. Regional trains mostly leave hourly, including the NRW-Express (Aachen–Hamm), Westfalen-Express (Düsseldorf–Minden), Rhein-Hellweg-Express (Düsseldorf–Paderborn), Ruhr-Sieg-Express (Essen–Siegen/Iserlohn), Ruhr-Lenne-Bahn (Essen–Hagen), Vest-Ruhr-Express (Bochum–Haltern am See) and Glückauf-Bahn (Bochum–Gelsenkirchen). The S1 commuter train between Dortmund and Solingen leaves every 15 minutes, dropping to every 30 minutes at night and on weekends.
By plane, the nearest international airport is Düsseldorf, roughly 50 km away; from there take the S1 commuter train bound for Dortmund or most northbound regional trains. Dortmund, Münster and Weeze are the regional airports nearby. If you arrive by intercity bus, the stop is on Wittener Straße, under the railway bridge to the left of the train station. Driving, Bochum lies at the intersection of the A40 (east/west) and A43 (north/south), with the A448 branching off the A40 west of the centre and forming the southern part of the highway loop around central Bochum. The Ruhr Area is sprawling, decentralised and car-oriented, so rush hour traffic is heavily congested — the A40 is jokingly known locally as the Ruhrschleichweg, or Ruhr crawling way. Much of Bochum is also covered by a low-emission zone (Umweltzone), so many vehicles, including foreign ones, need an appropriate sticker; this does not apply to through-traffic on the Autobahn.
Getting around
Bochum sits at the centre of the Ruhr, and its transport network is built to move you not just around the city but between it and its neighbours. Public transport is run by BOGESTRA, part of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (VRR) association, so a single ticket covers buses, the U-Bahn/Stadtbahn, trams, S-Bahn and regional trains, depending on the fare category you choose. Category A is for travel within the same city, category B for any number of immediately adjacent cities (some stops just over the border are exceptions, usually signposted), and category C for anywhere in the VRR area. Buy tickets from BOGESTRA customer service desks, ticket machines at U-Bahn stations and major interchange stops, bus drivers, or designated kiosks bearing the BOGESTRA or VRR logo, as well as the official route-planning and ticketing app. Customer service offices are in the main subway station and at the Bogestra Administration Building on Universitätsstraße. Stamp your paper ticket before entering a vehicle or underground platform — orange or red stamp boxes sit at platform entrances, and buses and trams usually have at least one inside.
The U35 Stadtbahn is the backbone line, running from Bochum-Querenburg via the Ruhr University and Bochum Main Station to Bochum-Riemke, Herne Station and Herne Strünkede. Ordinary trams also run underground in the city centre, and all lines except 309 meet at Bochum Main Station. Trams fan out to Wattenscheid, Gelsenkirchen, Witten, Hattingen, Linden, Weitmar, Gerthe and Wanne-Eickel, among other destinations. Buses fill in the districts that trams and trains do not reach, and not all stops are request stops, so signal the driver if you want to get off. On weekends and holidays, Night-Express buses, trams and trains run once an hour to the suburbs with a scheduled transfer at Bochum Main Station. Since 2019 only accessible low-floor vehicles operate, though at many stops wheelchair users need the driver to fold out a ramp, as some stops are merely signs at the side of the street. Stops are announced and shown on digital screens at most larger stations. Taxis are available but can be quite expensive, so for short hops in the centre, walking or the tram is usually better value.
Where to stay
Where you sleep in Bochum depends on whether you want nightlife, transport links or quiet. At the Bermuda3Eck entertainment district, a hostel puts you in the middle of the bars and music venues. If you are arriving or leaving by train, the area around Bochum Central Station (Hauptbahnhof) is the practical choice: a budget chain hotel sits directly at the station and is dated but clean, with free Wi-Fi, while another hotel at the station has rooms with air conditioning and windows facing either the bus station or the tracks.
- Hostel at Bermuda3Eck, in the entertainment district
- Budget hotel at Bochum Central Station, dated but clean, free Wi-Fi
- Hotel at the train station next to the bus station, rooms with AC
- Small family-owned hotel near Ruhr University
- Four-star hotel next to Ruhr Park shopping centre, at the A40/A43 crossing, in a quiet location, with breakfast, a bar and a sauna; dogs welcome
- Modern hotel at the Stadtpark
Food & drink
Bochum's traditional cooking is the cooking of the Ruhr: Westphalian at heart, with East-Prussian and Rhenish influences layered on top. Expect cabbage, rabbit, goat and pork to have featured on older tables, sometimes pigeon too. The kitchen keeps changing, and today Turkish, Polish, Russian and Mediterranean influences are just as much part of the everyday menu. A genuine local classic is the sausage from Dönninghaus butchers, known as "Die Originale" and famous well beyond the city limits; it is the basis of a seriously good Currywurst and you will find it at snack bars across town. Seasons shape what is on offer: blue mussels are treated as a delicacy from September to February, Dutch "Matjes" salted herring with a gentle taste arrives in May, and May is also asparagus season, when restaurants usually serve the domestic white variety rather than green. Turkish and Arabic shops sell small sweets made from puff pastry, almonds, coconut flakes, honey and plenty of sugar; the Turkish versions are extremely sweet, the Arabic ones closer to European pastries, and both are worth trying. Once a year, over one long summer weekend, Bochum Kulinarisch brings chefs from the city and its surroundings to Massenberg Boulevard to cook for a low budget.
For cheap eating in the centre, you can choose between Neuland Küche.Bar.Bühne, a former corner pub turned meeting place for artists and students with rustic decor and vegan dishes, the German restaurants Erdapfel Bochum, Taubenschlag Gaststätte and Zur Altstadt, a wood-fired pizzeria on Kortumstraße, or Syrian food at Mc Damascus. Mid-range options include the German Brauhaus Rietkötter and Mutter Wittig, Greek at Avli, Turkish at Side, Australian and international at Strätlingshof in Altenbochum, and Spanish at the Tapas Bar und Restaurant and Una Mas. At the top end you will find new international cooking at Livingroom, modern European at Zum Grünen Gaul, Italian at Trattoria Momo, Spanish at La Mesa Gastronomie and Japanese at Sushi Takeshi. To drink, people in the Ruhr drink beer, all of it brewed under the German purity law from nothing but water, hop and malt, sometimes with yeast. Fiege is the one big brewery left in Bochum; its beer is available all over the city but mainly at Fiege's Stammhaus. Fiege Pils is bitter and hoppy with a strong yellow colour, Fiege Gründer is smoother thanks to its original recipe, Bläck Mäck is a dark beer with a strong taste, and Bockbier, only during May, carries roughly double the alcohol. Brewing House Tauffenbach is the only place to get the very light and sweet Tauffenbach-Pils.
What to see and do
Bochum's museums lean heavily on the region's industrial past. The German Mining Museum is regarded as one of the best of its kind anywhere, and even though the site was never used for actual mining, an extensive replica mine has been built underground for visitors, with the headframe of a nearby colliery moved here as a landmark. At the Railway Museum and Station Dahlhausen, lovers of old steam engines can explore one of the country's largest railway museums, and on summer Sundays there are heritage train trips along the line to Hattingen and over an otherwise-closed route to Wengern, alternating between steam, diesel and a 1930s diesel railbus. At the Hannover Colliery, culture rather than coal has been produced for years, with temporary exhibitions and events ranging from steam festivals to boules tournaments, a "Kids Colliery" where children can play at being miners, and a steam-powered winding engine operated at events using compressed air. The Planetarium near the Stadtpark seats 300 under its dome, and it's worth buying your ticket half an hour before the show; note that it has no parking of its own, so use the streets nearby. For art, the Art Museum focuses on Middle-European and Eastern-European Avant-Garde alongside German Expressionism, Surrealism, Informal and Cobra, while the Ruhr-University's art collection sets modern against classic, with a portrait ensemble of Greek and Roman emperors and antique Greek vases. The Schlieker-House shows changing exhibitions from the lifework of the informal painter Hans-Jürgen Schlieker in his former apartment and studio, and Situation Kunst in the park of Haus Weitmar holds a permanent exhibition of international artists plus an Africa and Asia room. Sculpture turns up across the city too: Richard Serra's "Terminal" stands to the left of the main station, the municipal park holds a collection of sculptures, and small brass "stumbling stones" set into the pavement carry the names of Jewish citizens arrested and murdered under National Socialism. Among the historic buildings, the 1931 City Hall by Prof. Karl Roth is strictly symmetrical with a plain façade, its atrium split by a hall with travertine and bronze fountains of beauty and happiness; the Stadtbahn station beneath it is worth a look for its self-supporting concourse ceiling, light-wells and the bridge carrying line 306. The Bismarck-Tower, opened in 1910 in honour of the honorary citizen Otto von Bismarck, gives an excellent view downtown from the top. In the Schlosspark Weitmar you can see the ruins of a 16th-century manor house preserved in a glass cube alongside the remains of an 11th-century chapel, and Haus Kemnade is a moated castle on the banks of the Ruhr whose present building was established in Renaissance style in the 17th century. Pick up the "Blaue Linie" flyers or a monthly events calendar at the tourist office on Huestraße, and the Route der Industriekultur guide is available as a PDF or along most stops of the trail.When to go
Bochum has an oceanic climate, with cool, unpredictable winters and short warm summers, and rain spread fairly evenly through the year. Winter is cool, dark and often frosty, with freezing temperatures common and very little sunshine; snow and severe cold spells can occur and disrupt traffic, though some winters pass with only mild frost. Winter is also the wettest part of the year, so rain is frequent.
Spring can still bring frost into March and occasionally as late as early May, but sunshine increases noticeably and this is one of the drier stretches of the year, though spring droughts have occurred in recent years. Summer is short and warm, with long days at midsummer, but June brings a secondary peak in rain as thunderstorms develop along Atlantic fronts, sometimes producing intense downpours and occasional hail; July is one of the drier months. In autumn, temperatures cool steadily, freezing conditions begin to set in from mid-November, rain becomes more frequent and sunshine declines towards the short, dark days of December.
Festivals & events
Bochum's event calendar follows the rhythm of the seasons. In April, the city marks Bochum Maiabend, a spring celebration that falls in the middle of the year's warming trend. By June, Extraschicht arrives, part of the region-wide night of industrial culture, when venues across the Ruhr open their doors after dark. December brings Bochum's Christmas, the city's winter festival.
If you plan your visit around these dates, you'll find the city at its most sociable: spring for Maiabend, early summer for Extraschicht, and the darkest weeks of the year for the Christmas season.
Three days in Bochum
Day one: Base yourself in Bochum, the heart of the Ruhr Metropolitan Region, and start by getting your bearings around the Main Station, known locally as the Hauptbahnhof, which is served by InterCity, ICE, IC, EC and DB services. From there, explore the city itself before heading out to the Ruhr Heights, the ridge that gives the wider Ruhr Area its name. In the evening, stay in Bochum and eat in the city centre.
Day two: Use Bochum as your base for the wider region. Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg are all within easy reach, and the Ruhr and Emscher rivers thread through the landscape. If you prefer to stay closer, the Ruhr University Bochum and Bochum University of Applied Sciences sit within the city, and Tippelsberg and Lake Kemnade offer open ground away from the streets. The Ruhr Area's story is one of Mining and heavy industry, with Opel among the names tied to its modern chapter, and the years around World War II leaving their mark on the region.
Day three: Look beyond the industrial core towards the edges of Westphalia, where Münsterland and Bergisches Land begin. Bochum sits within Westphalia, in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the city is part of the Arnsberg administrative region. Germany's Rhine corridor and the Ruhr Metropolitan Region connect this corner of the country to the rest, so a final day can be spent moving between the towns of the Ruhr before returning to Bochum.