Where To From Munster?
Dec 17th, 2009, 02:46 PM
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Where To From Munster?
I will be in Munster, Germany for a week in February for business and will be staying an extra week for pleasure. I am trying to figure out where to spend my week after Munster! Would it be best to remain in Germany and go to Berlin, Munich, Nurremburg, OR should I head over the Amsterdam, down into Belgium and on to Paris before returning to Munster, OR would it be best to go to Amsterdam, over to London, back to Paris then Munster? Looking for some good itineraries. I may be traveling by myself on this, my first trip to Europe, and am not sure how aggressive I want to get, especially if there are weather issues. Would love any suggestions I can get!
Dec 27th, 2009, 02:44 AM
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So please note that the city's name is MÜnster, alternative spelling: Muenster. The two dots on the u may not simply be omitted, they have to be substituted by inserting an extra e. Important when booking train tickets or hotels, or you'll end up in the wrong place...
Munster is a smaller town with a British army base and a tank museum about an hour further east in the Lüneburg heath.
Munster is a smaller town with a British army base and a tank museum about an hour further east in the Lüneburg heath.
Jan 2nd, 2010, 08:25 AM
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I am not a native of Münster or Germany, but since nobody else as really offered any thoughts, (other than determining what city you were looking at) I thought I could give you my thoughts. My wife grew up in Münster and we travel there about every other year to visit her family. Here are two blurbs out of my past travel logs on Muenster and a nearby castle. Feel free to visit the links if you want to view the whole logs. Hopefully you do not find my writing style too annoying…
<b>2005 Trip</b>
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...nd-england.cfm
<i>Today we spent the day in Münster, which is the city that Deille grew up in. Münster, from what I can tell, is famous for three things, two of which are historical.
The first is that the Peace of Westphalia was signed here. This was what ended the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). This war was all about how good a Christian you were. At first if you were Christian it meant you were Catholic (never mind the Eastern Orthodox Church, The Coptic Church, The Nestorians, the Cathars... forget the Cathars, the Catholics had already eradicated them... None of these where Christians according to the Catholics). Then in the 15th and 16th centuries this started to change. People (and not just crazies like the Cathars) started to question the church on all sorts of issues. There was Luther, Calvin, some King from England named Henry VIII and many others. The Pope did not handle these questions that well and soon things got kind of nasty. Basically this meant that everyone built armies and laid waste to each other’s countries, cities and farms (read peasants). This war waged back and forth for thirty years and at first it looked as if the Catholics would win in the end. Then for some odd reason the Swedes showed up and sided with the non-catholics. Their King, Gustavus Adolphus (kind of an odd name for a Swede if you ask me), won a string of amazing victories before dieing suddenly from food poisoning, the flu or SARs.. I cannot remember what it was. Anyways, after this everyone eventually tired of the fighting and they signed a peace treaty in Münster. The reason they chose Münster may have been because of its tolerance.
An example of this tolerance can be seen in the second historical thing that Münster is famous for, but actually this occurred before the Thirty Years War. This was the Anabaptist movement. This group sought to establish adult baptism, polygamy and the abolishment of money. The church was not happy about this and decided to stamp out this movement before it spread from Münster. The local bishop defeated the Anabaptists in a pitched battle and then tortured and executed their leaders. The corpses of the three most prominent leaders where then placed in iron cages and hung from the tower of one of the churches in town as a reminder to anyone else that would challenge the catholic churches views. These cages can still be seen hanging from the church.
So I guess it is unlikely that tolerance was the actual reason that Münster was chosen. I think it was more likely that it was spared from any damage during the Thirty Years War, which was quite a novelty in this part of Europe (However this luck did not hold during World War II when most of the city was leveled - except for the tower with the cages).
Finally I get to the third claim to fame of Münster. This is that it must have more bicycles than anywhere else in the world. I am not over exaggerating in the least. I swear, it is unbelievable. They even have a bicycle parking structure downtown. It can become quite dangerous to a person not educated in the ways of bicycle/pedestrian etiquette like myself. There are certain areas unperceivable to a North American's eye, where standing or walking is an invitation to get run over by a bicycle. It does not help when this American is looking at come rusty cages hanging from a church and oblivious to all else, especially some quiet bicycle bell chime. Lets just say that I am home to type this email, so all is ok... but it was close.</i>
(2007 Trip)
<b>Burg Vischering</b>
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...travelogue.cfm
<i>Tuesday was our last day in Muenster, and to celebrate we promptly left and went to see a local castle called Burg Vischering. This is a classic moated castle which isn’t really that common in Germany. The castle itself is quite well intact but it did have major renovations as late as the 17th century taking a bit of its medieval appeal away. However, the saddest changes to the site probably took place at the hands of the Americans (or one of the allies) during World War II when a bomber dropped a bomb that missed the castle but took out several of the supporting building including the mill. While the castle probably had no military or economic significance it was not unheard of for allied bombers to unload left-over bombs on castles.</i>
<b>2005 Trip</b>
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...nd-england.cfm
<i>Today we spent the day in Münster, which is the city that Deille grew up in. Münster, from what I can tell, is famous for three things, two of which are historical.
The first is that the Peace of Westphalia was signed here. This was what ended the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). This war was all about how good a Christian you were. At first if you were Christian it meant you were Catholic (never mind the Eastern Orthodox Church, The Coptic Church, The Nestorians, the Cathars... forget the Cathars, the Catholics had already eradicated them... None of these where Christians according to the Catholics). Then in the 15th and 16th centuries this started to change. People (and not just crazies like the Cathars) started to question the church on all sorts of issues. There was Luther, Calvin, some King from England named Henry VIII and many others. The Pope did not handle these questions that well and soon things got kind of nasty. Basically this meant that everyone built armies and laid waste to each other’s countries, cities and farms (read peasants). This war waged back and forth for thirty years and at first it looked as if the Catholics would win in the end. Then for some odd reason the Swedes showed up and sided with the non-catholics. Their King, Gustavus Adolphus (kind of an odd name for a Swede if you ask me), won a string of amazing victories before dieing suddenly from food poisoning, the flu or SARs.. I cannot remember what it was. Anyways, after this everyone eventually tired of the fighting and they signed a peace treaty in Münster. The reason they chose Münster may have been because of its tolerance.
An example of this tolerance can be seen in the second historical thing that Münster is famous for, but actually this occurred before the Thirty Years War. This was the Anabaptist movement. This group sought to establish adult baptism, polygamy and the abolishment of money. The church was not happy about this and decided to stamp out this movement before it spread from Münster. The local bishop defeated the Anabaptists in a pitched battle and then tortured and executed their leaders. The corpses of the three most prominent leaders where then placed in iron cages and hung from the tower of one of the churches in town as a reminder to anyone else that would challenge the catholic churches views. These cages can still be seen hanging from the church.
So I guess it is unlikely that tolerance was the actual reason that Münster was chosen. I think it was more likely that it was spared from any damage during the Thirty Years War, which was quite a novelty in this part of Europe (However this luck did not hold during World War II when most of the city was leveled - except for the tower with the cages).
Finally I get to the third claim to fame of Münster. This is that it must have more bicycles than anywhere else in the world. I am not over exaggerating in the least. I swear, it is unbelievable. They even have a bicycle parking structure downtown. It can become quite dangerous to a person not educated in the ways of bicycle/pedestrian etiquette like myself. There are certain areas unperceivable to a North American's eye, where standing or walking is an invitation to get run over by a bicycle. It does not help when this American is looking at come rusty cages hanging from a church and oblivious to all else, especially some quiet bicycle bell chime. Lets just say that I am home to type this email, so all is ok... but it was close.</i>
(2007 Trip)
<b>Burg Vischering</b>
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...travelogue.cfm
<i>Tuesday was our last day in Muenster, and to celebrate we promptly left and went to see a local castle called Burg Vischering. This is a classic moated castle which isn’t really that common in Germany. The castle itself is quite well intact but it did have major renovations as late as the 17th century taking a bit of its medieval appeal away. However, the saddest changes to the site probably took place at the hands of the Americans (or one of the allies) during World War II when a bomber dropped a bomb that missed the castle but took out several of the supporting building including the mill. While the castle probably had no military or economic significance it was not unheard of for allied bombers to unload left-over bombs on castles.</i>
Jan 2nd, 2010, 08:28 AM
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Here is a list of some of the other sites in Muenster that I have visited over the years.
The Mühlenhof open-air museum which has buildings and exhibits depicting life from this area in earlier centuries. I have been here a few times and have always enjoyed it.
The Westphalian Museum of Natural History has a nice planetarium and some other interesting exhibits.
St. Lambert’s Church is the church with the three cages hanging from it.
The other large church is St. Paul’s Cathedral. It has a cool astronomical clock. There is also a statue of Cardinal Clemens August Graf von Galen outside the church. He was the Bishop of Münster during World War II and at times has been lauded as a hero for criticizing the Nazi government, and at other times as having been weak for not doing more to help the plight of those being persecuted by the Nazi’s. I find him to be a very interesting figure.
The Münster Zoo is a favorite of my wife and daughter, but I am not so interested in zoos in general.
Personally, I think the best thing to do in Münster is just leisurely walk around the pedestrian zone in the city center. Maybe shop a little, have tea, and people watch.
If you are interested in some day trips, Soest is a beautiful town not too far away. Xanten is also very interesting if you like Roman history and Architecture.
Hopefully this information is useful for you.
The Mühlenhof open-air museum which has buildings and exhibits depicting life from this area in earlier centuries. I have been here a few times and have always enjoyed it.
The Westphalian Museum of Natural History has a nice planetarium and some other interesting exhibits.
St. Lambert’s Church is the church with the three cages hanging from it.
The other large church is St. Paul’s Cathedral. It has a cool astronomical clock. There is also a statue of Cardinal Clemens August Graf von Galen outside the church. He was the Bishop of Münster during World War II and at times has been lauded as a hero for criticizing the Nazi government, and at other times as having been weak for not doing more to help the plight of those being persecuted by the Nazi’s. I find him to be a very interesting figure.
The Münster Zoo is a favorite of my wife and daughter, but I am not so interested in zoos in general.
Personally, I think the best thing to do in Münster is just leisurely walk around the pedestrian zone in the city center. Maybe shop a little, have tea, and people watch.
If you are interested in some day trips, Soest is a beautiful town not too far away. Xanten is also very interesting if you like Roman history and Architecture.
Hopefully this information is useful for you.
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