Where to Stay in Münster, Nordrhein-Westfalen

What is Münster known for?

Münster and Osnabrück together hosted the Treaties of Westphalia that closed the Thirty Years' War in 1648, an event that fixed this city in European history far beyond its size. Bicycles are the other headline. Germany calls Münster its bicycle capital, and the St.-Paulus-Dom, the Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural History and the Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso Münster all sit within reach of two wheels.

What are the main landmarks in Münster?

Churches carry the skyline. The St.-Paulus-Dom leads, with the Apostelkirche, the Dominikanerkirche, the Clemenskirche, the Herz-Jesu-Kirche and the Alte St.-Aegidii-Kirche behind it. Museums nearly outnumber them.

The Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural History, the Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso Münster, the Museum of Lacquer Art, the Bible Museum Münster and the Westphalian Horse Museum each hold their own collections, and the Buddenturm and the Townhouse tower in Münster survive from an older register.

What is the history of Münster?

Reformation broke here first. Münster was the site of the Anabaptist rebellion during the Protestant Reformation, an episode that put the city into the front rank of a European religious upheaval. The cathedral predates that.

The St.-Paulus-Dom and the Alte St.-Aegidii-Kirche belong to the older church city, while the Buddenturm and the Townhouse tower in Münster carry the two tower names on the register. Then came 1648. Münster and Osnabrück were the two signing places of the Treaties of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War and gave the name of this region to a settlement studied ever since.

Westphalia had its capital here. The city is also the centre of a state district, and the regional name repeats across the Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural History, the Westphalian Museum of Natural History and the Westphalian Horse Museum. Not all of it is church.

The Kunstmuseum Pablo Picasso Münster, the Museum of Lacquer Art, the Bible Museum Münster, the City Museum of Münster and the Geologisch-Paläontologisches Museum Münster give the city five collections that answer to nothing on the parish register. Villa Ten Hompel joins them. So does the Mühlenhof Open-Air Museum, which sets rural Westphalian building against the Gottfried von Cappenberg Church and the rest of the parish stock.

Where is Münster?

Münster covers about 303 square kilometres. That is a large municipal area for a city whose named sites, from the St.-Paulus-Dom and the Buddenturm to the Münster Zoo and the Mühlenhof Open-Air Museum, sit at very different points across it. Westphalia surrounds it.

The region takes its historic capital from here, and Osnabrück shared the 1648 signing with it.

What is the climate of Münster?

Bicycles set the test. A temperate year over Westphalia leaves few weeks when the ride from the St.-Paulus-Dom out to the Mühlenhof Open-Air Museum is genuinely unpleasant, which is part of why the city keeps its cycling name. Wet spells arrive anyway.

The Museum of Lacquer Art and the Bible Museum Münster are the answer to those.

How do you get to Münster?

Two wheels beat four here. Germany's bicycle capital hands arrivals a way to cross 303 square kilometres without a car, and the St.-Paulus-Dom, the Buddenturm and the Westphalian State Museum of Art and Cultural History all fall within that range. Osnabrück is the twin.

The two cities shared the 1648 signing, which is why their names appear together in every account of the Treaties of Westphalia.