The site of continental Europe’s first cotton spinning mill has lived up to its innovative history but has never given up its traditional character.
Visit the charming old town of Ratingen. With its medieval walls, it’s hard to believe that Ratingen is home to some of Germany’s biggest technology firms. This contradiction is embraced by the people of the city, who have mastered a balance between cutting-edge innovation and the good life since industrialization came to the city in 1783.
Start in the Marktplatz, where people have been buying and selling food and goods since the 14th century. Purchase a luscious pastry and walk around the 13th-century City Walls, much of which remain. Make it all the way to the Wasserberg Haus zum Haus, a 13th-century moated castle now converted into a cultural center. The Altstadt’s jewel is indisputably St. Peter und Paul, Ratingen’s parish church, one of the region’s best-preserved examples of how Gothic extensions were added to Romanesque basilicas.
See where Ratingen’s technology history started at the Textilfabrik Cromford, now a museum, next to the owner’s palatial mansion, also a museum. Right outside the walls, browse 20th-century art in the Pompidou-esque Ratingen Museum. In a quirk of history, the Upper Silesian State Museum, celebrating the folk art of southern Poland, is one of the far-off German city’s best attractions.
Just north of Düsseldorf, Ratingen is easy to reach from most international destinations through the transportation hubs in the larger city. Drive from the airport to Ratingen’s Old Town in about 15 minutes. Car rental is available at the airport. Düsseldorf’s central train station, which connects all of the cities of the Rhine Valley and other places throughout Europe, is a 15-minute subway ride or 25-minute drive from Ratingen center. Use the robust bus and tram system in Ratingen’s town center and rent a car to explore the natural areas around it.
Some of Ratingen’s oldest residents are housed in the nearby bilingual Neanderthal Museum. View the Neanderthal remains, discovered in a nearby quarry in 1856, that completely upended the history of humanity.
