Bochum is a Ruhr city that ran on coal for over a century, then had to figure out what to do when the mines closed. The last shaft went dark in the 1970s, the steelworks followed, and Bochum spent the 1980s and 1990s rebuilding itself around universities, culture, and a surprisingly vibrant music and theatre scene. It has not become glamorous — this is still a working-class city with a blunt civic pride — but it is livelier and more interesting than its industrial reputation suggests.
The German Mining Museum is the city's standout attraction and the largest mining museum in the world. You descend into a real underground demonstration mine and come up with a genuine sense of what it meant to work here. The 71-metre headframe above the museum is visible across much of the city. Above ground, the Schauspielhaus Bochum is one of Germany's most respected repertory theatres, drawing productions that regularly travel to Berlin and Hamburg. The Anneliese Brost Musikforum Ruhr, opened in 2016, gives the city a serious concert hall for the first time.
The Bermuda3Eck — the triangle of streets around Viktoriastrasse and Kortumstrasse — is where students and locals drink, eat, and go out. It is unpretentious and gets noisy on weekends. North of the centre, the Stadtpark shelters the Zeiss-Planetarium, one of the oldest public planetariums in Germany. The Starlight Express musical has been running in a purpose-built arena since 1988 — a curiosity worth knowing about if you have children or a tolerance for roller-skating spectacle.
Bochum sits at the heart of the Ruhr conurbation. Essen is 20 minutes west by S-Bahn, Dortmund 20 minutes east. The Ruhr University Bochum, on the southern hills of the city, is one of Germany's largest universities and gives the city a permanent youthful energy.