What to See in Bonn - Top Sights and Attractions

Birthplace of masterful composer. The Beethoven House in Bonn, Germany, is a memorial site, museum and cultural institution serving various purposes. Founded in 1889 by the Beethoven-Haus association, it studies the life and work of composer Ludwig van Beethoven.

The centrepiece of the Beethoven-Haus is Beethoven's birthplace at Bonngasse 20. This building houses the museum. The neighbouring buildings (Bonngasse 18 and 24 to 26) accommodate a research centre (Beethoven archive) comprising a collection, a library and publishing house, and a chamber music hall. Here, music lovers and experts from all over the world can meet and share their ideas. The Beethoven-Haus is financed by the Beethoven-Haus association and by means of public funds.^[1]

Botanic gardens with greenhouses and pond. The Botanische Gärten der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn, also known as the Botanischer Garten Bonn, is a botanical garden and arboretum maintained by the University of Bonn. It is located at Meckenheimer Allee 171, Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and open except Saturdays in the warmer months; admission is free on weekdays.

The gardens were originally castle grounds for the Archbishop of Cologne, dating to about 1340, which circa 1650 were fashioned into a renaissance garden. In 1720 the site was reworked as a baroque garden, setting the basic structure of today's garden, with the rococo Poppelsdorf Palace completed in 1746 by Archbishop Clemens August. When the University of Bonn was founded in 1818, its first garden director, Dr. Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck (1776-1858), began to focus the garden on scientific botany. By 1900 the garden was second only to Berlin's within Germany, but it was utterly destroyed in World War II. Reconstruction began after the war and was completed in 1979-1984 with the construction of two conservatories.

Today the garden cultivates about 8,000 plant species, ranging from endangered local species from the Rhineland such as Lady's Slipper Orchids to protected species such as Sophora toromiro from Easter Island. Its outdoor gardens, containing about 3,000 species, are organized as follows:

• Arboretum - 700 species of woody plants, including fine specimens of Araucaria araucana, Ginkgo biloba, Nyssa, Pinus bungeana, and Torreya, as well as old specimens of Taxodium distichum.
• Systematic section - about 1,200 species arranged in beds reflecting their evolutionary relationships; notable specimens include Passiflora caerulea, Trachycarpus fortunei, and Umbellularia californica.
• Geographical section - plants grouped by geographical origin.
• Biotope section - the most important locally occurring plant communities, including endangered species from the Bonn region.

The garden also contains about 0.5 hectares of greenhouse area, including a major conservatory (2,500 m²) completed in 1984. Roughly 3,000 species are cultivated in public areas as follows:

• Fern house - tree ferns and other indigenous plants from cool cloud forests on tropical mountains.
• Mediterranean house - winter shelter for subtropical plants from the Mediterranean, South Africa, California, and Australia.
• Palm house - epiphytes and large rain forest plants such as bananas and bamboos.
• Succulent house - Succulents including new world cacti and agaves, and old world Aloes and Euphorbias, including Welwitschia mirabilis.
• Victoria house - giant water lily (Victoria regia), Nymphaea, Aristolochia and Passiflora, tropical bog plants, and a fine specimen of Amorphophallus titanum.
• Smaller houses including a carnivorous plant house, geophyte house, and two orchid houses.

Museum in Bonn, Germany. Akademisches Kunstmuseum is an art museum in Bonn, Germany. It is the oldest museum in Bonn and houses the antique collection of the University of Bonn with more than 500 antique statues and reliefs, and over 2,000 originals. It is located in a neoclassical building at the southern end of the Hofgarten, near the Electoral Palace.

The museum was founded in 1818 and has one of the largest collections of plaster casts of ancient Greek and Roman sculptures in the world. At this time collections of plaster casts were mainly used in the instruction of students at art academies. They were first used in the instruction of university students in 1763 by Christian Gottlob Heyne at University of Göttingen. The Akademisches Kunstmuseum in Bonn was the first of its kind, as at this time collections at other universities were scattered around universities libraries. The first director was Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, who also held a professorship of archaeology. His tenure was from 1819 until his retirement in 1854. He was succeeded by Otto Jahn and Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl, who shared the directorship. From 1870 to 1889 Reinhard Kekulé von Stradonitz, nephew of the famous organic chemist Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz, was the director. In 1872 the museum moved to a new building that was formerly used by the department of anatomy. The building was constructed from 1823 to 1830 and designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Hermann Friedrich Waesemann. Other directors of the museum were Georg Loeschcke (from 1889 to 1912), Franz Winter (from 1912 to 1929), Richard Delbrueck (from 1929 to 1940), Ernst Langlotz (from 1944 to 1966), Nikolaus Himmelmann (from 1969 to 1994) and Harald Mielsch (since 1994). All directors, with the exception of Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl held a professorship of archaeology at the university.^[10]

Museum in Bonn, Germany. Haus der Geschichte is a museum of contemporary history in Bonn, Germany. With around one million visitors every year, it is one of the most popular German museums. The Haus der Geschichte is, as well as the "Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig", the "Tränenpalast" am Bahnhof Friedrichstraße and the "Museum in the Kulturbrauerei" part of the Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Foundation. The foundation's place of business is Bonn.

In its permanent exhibition, the Haus der Geschichte presents German history from 1945 until the present. Numerous temporary exhibitions emphasize different features. The Haus der Geschichte also organizes guided tours of the Palais Schaumburg (has been closed since August 2013 because of building restoration for estimated three years), the Chancellor's bungalow and the former place of the Federal Assembly. Moreover, the museum maintains a cartoon gallery with over 75,000 political cartoons and caricatures.^[11]

Villa in Bonn, Germany. Hammerschmidt Villa is a villa in the German city of Bonn that served as the primary official seat and primary official residence of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1950 until 1994. President Richard von Weizsäcker made Bellevue Palace in Berlin his primary official seat and residence in 1994. In German, the Villa is also called the "White House of Bonn", and served as a political symbol of West Germany and its capital Bonn. Since 1994, the Hammerschmidt Villa has been the secondary official seat and secondary official residence of the President of Germany. The President's standard is flown above Hammerschmidt Villa when the President is in Bonn.

The villa is situated in the heart of the former government quarter of Bonn, bordering the river Rhine to the north and opposite the zoological Museum Koenig to the south. It is also adjacent to the secondary official seat and secondary official residence of the Chancellor, the Palais Schaumburg, to the west.

The upper floor of the building houses a private apartment for the German President, while the ground floor consists of state rooms which are used for ceremonial purposes.

Villa Hammerschmidt was built by August Dieckhoff in 1860 in Neo-classical style, as a stately home for a wealthy industrialist. It was redecorated in 1868 by the architect Otto Penner.^[22]

Public university in Bonn, Germany. The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn is an elite public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the Rhein-Universität on 18 October 1818 by Frederick William III, as the linear successor of the Kurkölnische Akademie Bonn which was founded in 1777. The University of Bonn offers many undergraduate and graduate programs in a range of subjects and has 544 professors. The University of Bonn is a member of the German U15 association of major research-intensive and leading medical universities in Germany. The University of Bonn also has the title of "University of Excellence" under the German Universities Excellence Initiative, and is consistently ranked amongst the best German research universities in the world rankings.

Bonn has 6 Clusters of Excellence, the most of any German university; the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics, the Matter and Light for Quantum Computing cluster, Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, PhenoRob: Research for the Future of Crop Production, the Immune Sensory System cluster, and ECONtribute: Markets and Public Policy. The University and State Library Bonn (ULB Bonn) is the central university and archive library of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn and North Rhine-Westphalia; it holds more than five million volumes.

As of October 2020, among its notable alumni, faculty and researchers are 11 Nobel Laureates, 4 Fields Medalists, 12 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners as well as some of the most gifted minds in Natural science, e.g. August Kekulé, Heinrich Hertz and Justus von Liebig; Eminent mathematicians, such as Karl Weierstrass, Felix Klein, Friedrich Hirzebruch and Felix Hausdorff; Major philosophers, such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx and Jürgen Habermas; Famous German poets and writers, for example Heinrich Heine, Paul Heyse and Thomas Mann; Painters, like Max Ernst; Political theorists, for instance Carl Schmitt and Otto Kirchheimer; Statesmen, viz. Konrad Adenauer and Robert Schuman; famous economists, like Walter Eucken, Ferdinand Tönnies and Joseph Schumpeter; and furthermore Prince Albert, Pope Benedict XVI and Wilhelm II.^[31]

Botanical garden in Bonn, Germany. The Arboretum Park Härle is a nonprofit arboretum located on the slopes of the Rhine Valley between Bonn and the Seven Mountains at Büchelstraße 40, Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is open twice a month during the warmer months; admission is free.

The arboretum dates back to 1870, when the director of the Rheinische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft created a large country house in the English half-timbered style, with park plantings that still remain, including two cedars (Cedrus libani and Cedrus atlantica), a Ginkgo biloba, a Sequoiadendron, and an incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens). In 1921 the property was acquired by jurist Dr. Carl Härle, who actively planted a wide variety of trees and shrubs. After his death in 1950, his daughters Maria and Regina Härle maintained the property, and ultimately willed it to a nonprofit foundation in 2000.

Today's arboretum consists of three distinct parts: the old park with old buildings, the new park on the grounds of a former nursery, and the extensive woods with lawn and fruit trees. All told, the arboretum contains more than 800 varieties of trees and shrubs, with extensive collections of Chamaecyparis, Juniperus, Taxus, and Thuja, as well as roses and fine specimens of Acer griseum, Cornus controversa, Cupressus sempervirens, Juniperus deppeana, Pseudotsuga menziesii, and Quercus pyrenaica.^[34]

Museum in Bonn, Germany. The Heimatmuseum Beuel is a local history museum in Bonn, Germany. The museum was established in 1986 on the initiative of Beuel's Local Historical Society.

The museum is divided into four buildings, which form a closed courtyard, in former Steinerstraße, now Wagnergasse. The oldest of the four buildings dates back to 1662.

The museum focuses on the historical development of the area of Beuel from Roman times to the present, especially on what used to be Beuel's main pre-industrial trade, its laundries. The exhibition also contains various furnishing objects, an old school room and a hairdressing room. Outside is a herb garden, some old gravestones and two aerial bombs.

The museum is entirely run by retired volunteers, who also offer guided tours of the site.^[35]