Bonn
Introduction
Bonn sits on the banks of the Rhine in North Rhine-Westphalia, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region, roughly 24 km south-southeast of Cologne. It is officially known as the Federal City of Bonn, a title that reflects its role as the capital of West Germany from 1949 until 1990 and as the seat of government for reunified Germany until the government relocated to Berlin in 1999.
The city's political history is woven into its identity: Bonn is the birthplace of Germany's current constitution, the Basic Law. As you plan your visit, keep that dual character in mind — a riverside city that spent decades at the centre of national life.
Before you go
Bonn's story reaches back to Roman times, when a settlement called "Bonna" grew up around roads, bridges and fortresses on the Rhine, and its patron saints, Cassius and Florentius, were martyred where the Münster basilica now stands. Later centuries brought repeated destruction, from Norman burnings to sieges and wars that levelled the town more than once, before it became the seat of the West German government in 1949 and, after reunification, kept a share of federal institutions alongside Berlin. Most of all, though, Bonn is known as Beethoven's birthplace; he was born on Bonngasse and left for Vienna as a young man, never to return. Before you arrive, it helps to know that the city spreads across distinct quarters, with the Südstadt in the south holding especially fine late 19th- and early 20th-century buildings along old alleys. For orientation, walking-tour brochures in English are available from the tourist information office on Windeckstraße, between the post office and Karstadt, where you can also pick up tickets for the theatre and opera.Getting there
Bonn is served by Cologne Bonn Airport (CGN), which has become a hub for Eurowings, Lufthansa's low-fare subsidiary, and is well connected to many major European airports. Other low-fare airlines such as Ryanair also serve it. Intercontinental passenger traffic is very limited, apart from a few flights to countries like Turkey, Morocco or Iran operated by the respective countries' airlines; for intercontinental flights, Frankfurt (FRA) and Düsseldorf (DUS) are the closest alternatives. From the airport, bus SB60 runs every 30 minutes between Bonn Hauptbahnhof and the airport, while train RB26 runs every 60 minutes and serves the airport station at night time only, and RB27 runs every 60 minutes between Bonn Beuel and the airport.
As the former capital of Germany, Bonn has convenient railway connections. Bonn Central Station (Bonn Hbf) is served by many local and regional trains as well as a few long-distance trains, and acts as the hub for Bonn's light rail system (Stadtbahn); you can arrive there from Cologne as well as Frankfurt and Koblenz via the slower, scenic route. Most high-speed ICE trains stop instead at Siegburg/Bonn station in the neighbouring town of Siegburg on the right-hand side of the Rhine, reachable from Bonn's city centre in 25 minutes by tram 66. Regional routes include RE5 (Koblenz – Köln – Bonn – Wesel), RB27 (Mönchengladbach – Bonn Beuel – Koblenz), S23 (Bonn – Euskirchen – Bad Münstereifel), and an ICE service from Bonn to Berlin-Ostkreuz taking roughly four and a half hours; Bonn-Beuel, on the right side of the Rhine, is served by regional trains RB27 and RE8 as well as Nightjet/IC services. By bus, the Flixbus stop known as the coach station "Museumsmeile" is on Joseph-Beyus-Allee, between the intersections with Marie-Kahle-Allee and Emil-Nolde-Straße, reached by tram lines 16, 18, 63, 66 or 68.
Getting around
Bonn's compact centre is easy to cover on foot, and walking is often the simplest way to move between the main sights if you're staying centrally. For anything further out, the city has an integrated network of buses, night buses, trams, light rail (Stadtbahn) and local trains, coordinated by the local Stadtwerke Bonn. Tickets are valid across all of these modes, so you can mix and match without buying separate fares, and Bonn Central Station (Bonn Hbf) is the hub for the light rail system and the natural starting point for most journeys. Tram line 66, for example, links the centre with the Siegburg/Bonn high-speed rail station on the far side of the Rhine.
Ticket offices and vending machines at major stations sell single tickets, multiple tickets, and 24-hour and weekly passes, which are worth it if you plan several trips. An open-top double-decker city tour bus lets you hop on and off at each stop, is valid for 24 hours, and is discounted with a Welcome card. You can also explore by bike: rental bikes are available at the train station from Deutsche Bahn on platform 1, or from the Radstation behind the train station, which also rents tandems and e-bikes. Nextbike/Welo offers app-based short-term bike rentals, and Lime, Tier and Voi provide app-based e-scooter rental. Uber, Bolt and Free Now cover the city for ride-hailing.
Where to stay
Bonn's budget options cluster in the Nordstadt and on the Venusberg. The independent youth hostel in the Nordstadt has rooms ranging from singles and doubles to eight-bed dorms, while the official youth hostel sits on the Venusberg, roughly twenty minutes by bus from the centre — night buses run there, but only once an hour. A church-run education house also occupies the Venusberg, about twenty minutes out, offering singles, doubles and dorms.
For a central stay, the mid-range choices put you at the Marktplatz or close to it, including a hotel with plenty of flair and history even if its interior decoration is a little old-fashioned, and another near the Hofgarten with free wi-fi in all rooms. Others sit very centrally or about ten minutes north of the centre. If you're after something grander, the former government guest house lies on one of the Siebengebirge's mountains with views over the Rhine and Bonn, about twenty minutes away by car. In the city itself, you'll find a design and ecological lifestyle hotel at the Bonner Bogen in Oberkassel, a hotel beside the Kennedy Bridge, one close to the centre and the Rhine, and a large conference hotel adjacent to the World Conference Center with a panoramic bar and restaurant on its top floor.
Food & drink
For cheap, filling meals, head to the city's bakeries, where you can pick up all sorts of bread rolls, filled sandwiches, pastries and cakes. Student cafeterias are another budget option: the ones at the Main University Building in the city centre, at the Juridicum and on the first floor of the Mensa Nassestraße serve inexpensive sandwiches and coffee on weekdays. For something more specific, try the small Korean snack bar on Franziskanerstraße for mandus, rolls, kimchi and glass noodles, or the falafel wraps and fries at the hole-in-the-wall place on Poppelsdorfer Allee. Other everyday standbys include a long-running pizza restaurant with two locations, a fast-food spot on Franzstraße known for currywurst, fries and burgers, and an Asian restaurant on Maximilianstraße serving Chinese, Thai and Indonesian dishes. The official student canteen on Nassestraße is open to non-students too, with a vegetarian line and a salad bar.
For a heartier meal, the local Bierhaus near Friedensplatz brews its own beer and serves schnitzel with fries, steaks and other filling fare. You'll also find very good Japanese cooking with fresh sushi, soups, curries and salads, a completely vegetarian buffet-style place opposite the Hauptbahnhof with vegan dishes marked, a Turkish and Levantine restaurant on Kölnstraße, and an Indian restaurant in the Nordstadt. Further out in Oberkassel, a Mediterranean and Middle Eastern restaurant serves a set sequence of dishes that changes regularly, with a vegetarian option. An Italian restaurant right on the Rhine offers a fine view, and there's another pizzeria serving pizza, pasta and other Italian dishes. At the top end, look for a café and restaurant next to Poppelsdorfer Castle and the botanical gardens, a fine-dining guesthouse with no à la carte but a set menu that changes monthly, and a Spanish tapas bar.
For coffee and cake, the city has several long-established cafés, including one of its most traditional, with plenty of outdoor seating on the Marktplatz in summer. Elsewhere you'll find good coffee specialties and cake, a café and coffee roastery next door to a coffee school, and a tea room in a beautiful frame house that brews high-quality tea upstairs and offers tastings in the shop below. An ice cream parlour rounds out the café options.
The Bonner Altstadt is the place to go for a night out, with plenty of small pubs and student bars. In summer, the large beer garden under an old tree by the Rhine is the definitive spot on a beautiful night, though it gets crowded and takes cash only; many people simply bring their own drinks and sit on the meadow next to it. You can also settle into an atmospheric Irish pub in the city centre with a wide range of beers and whiskies, a popular Mexican bar with cocktails and food, a cocktail bar with a good atmosphere, or a small, popular cocktail bar that also does pizza and tapas. In the multicultural Nordstadt, two spots are especially pleasant for a summer beer, one with a beer garden outside. Further out in Endenich, an Irish pub serves traditional Irish fare and draws a student crowd with karaoke and trivia. For something different, there's a punkrockers' bar that shows football matches and hosts occasional concerts and readings. Club-goers can head to a dive bar specialising in funk and 1960s music, or an underground rock club near the Hauptbahnhof with young patrons and occasional student parties.
What to see and do
Bonn rewards you with a compact centre where you can move between the old and the modern on foot. Start around the Markt, where the Rococo Old Town Hall (Altes Rathaus) stands, though it is not open to visitors. Nearby on Münsterplatz you'll find the Beethoven Monument, a large bronze statue of the composer, and the Bonner Münster, a beautiful basilica in the heart of the city; guided tours of the basilica can only be arranged through Bonn Information or the Bonner Münster Foundation, and Bonn Information can organise tours in languages other than German. From there, walk to the University Main Building, housed in the former residential palace of the Archbishop and Kurfürst of Cologne, which stretches from Kaiserplatz to the Rhine. The building looks impressive from the outside and you are free to walk in, but the best view of the palace is from the Hofgarten side, a park in front of it where students relax in summer. Continue via Kaiserplatz and Poppelsdorfer Allee to the Poppelsdorfer Schloss, a Rococo former resort that now houses the university's mineral collection and science departments; the palace itself is not open to the public, but the botanical gardens beside it are a peaceful place to relax and watch the sunbathing turtles at the pool. For a quieter side of the city, the Alter Friedhof, created in 1715, is an atmospheric old cemetery with graves including those of Robert and Clara Schumann and Ernst Moritz Arndt. Across the river in Schwarzrheindorf, the Doppelkirche, built in 1151, is one of Germany's most outstanding Romanesque churches, known for its rich ceiling paintings of saints and apocalyptic scenes; you can walk back toward Bonn along the dam and across the Kennedy bridge, a popular promenade. The Kreuzbergkirche is a fine example of Baroque architecture, best known for its Heiliger Steige, or holy staircase, whose small brass crosses mark where pieces of the cross are said to be set into the stone, and it offers a beautiful view over Bonn. If you want green space, the Rheinauen is a large park south of the centre behind the Post Tower, reachable by following the Rhine promenade, and the Kottenforst is a big nature park between Bonn and the surrounding towns, popular for walking tours. Among the museums, the Beethoven-Haus on Bonngasse is the composer's birthplace, the Arithmeum holds a collection of historical mechanical calculating machines, and the Ägyptisches Museum and the Akademisches Kunstmuseum display Egyptian material and plaster casts of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture respectively. The Bonn Regio WelcomeCard gives free or reduced admission to most public museums and free rides on local buses and trams.Festivals & events
Bonn's event calendar gives you a reason to plan around the seasons. In May, the Rhein in Flammen turns the river into the centrepiece of the city, with the water and sky lit up for the occasion. Later in the year, the Christmas Market opens in November, bringing the run-up to the festive season into the city's streets and squares.Three days in Bonn
Day one: Start in Bonn itself, the former Federal City of West Germany, and get your bearings in the centre. Walk the Bonngasse, where Beethoven was born, and take in the Münster, the Romanesque church whose origins reach back to the Roman Bonna and the martyrs Cassius and Florentius. From there the Rhine is close at hand, and the riverbank is the natural place to spend the rest of the day watching the water and the traffic on it.
Day two: Head south into the Südstadt, the quiet residential quarter with its English-style streets, and then loop back through the shopping core around Windeckstraße and Karstadt. If you want a change of scale, Cologne is an easy run up the Rhine, and the Ruhr and the rest of North Rhine-Westphalia lie further along the same axis. Keep the evening free for the Rhine again, since the river is what gives the city its shape.
Day three: Use the day for the wider region. Cologne Bonn Airport, known as CGN, is served by Eurowings, Lufthansa, Ryanair and other European carriers, so a departure from there is straightforward. Before you leave, remember that Bonn's later role was as the seat of the Basic Law and the West German state before the move to Berlin, which is why the city still carries the name Federal City. Most visitors find three days enough to see the centre, the Südstadt and a stretch of the Rhine without rushing.