Duisburg is a Ruhr city that has reinvented its industrial heritage more creatively than most. The standout is Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord, a former ironworks and blast furnace complex converted into a public park. By day you can climb the ore bunkers and walk through the industrial ruins; by night the whole site is lit up with coloured lights by artist Jonathan Park. The old gasometer has been turned into a diving centre, and rock climbers scale the concrete walls of the ore storage bunkers.
The city sits at the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr and has the largest inland port in the world. The Innenhafen, the old inner harbour, has been redeveloped with museums, restaurants, and the striking Küppersmühle museum of modern art designed by Herzog & de Meuron. The Lehmbruck Museum — dedicated to Duisburg's own great Expressionist sculptor — is one of the best sculpture museums in Germany and one of the least crowded.
In the south of the city, Tiger & Turtle — Magic Mountain is a walkable roller-coaster sculpture atop a former slag heap, with panoramic views over the Rhine. Duisburg is not a pretty city, but it is an honest one, and the way it has repurposed its industrial past is genuinely impressive.