Every design for Bergisch Gladbach

At Schloss Bensberg you are standing in what was a town of its own until the reform that created today's Bergisch Gladbach, and that says a good deal about the place: several old settlements stitched together, close enough to Cologne to feel its pull, yet set in their own hills.

It lies about ten kilometres east of the Rhine, where the land begins to climb out of the Lower Rhine bay into the Bergische Höhen, with Cologne directly to the west and Leverkusen to the north. The name comes from the counts of Berg and from the Strunde, the stream that was channelled in the early Middle Ages and gave Gladbach its second half. Paper making shaped the town's working life, and the Kunstmuseum Villa Zanders recalls the families behind it. Daily life spreads across many districts that were once small villages, from Refrath and Schildgen to Herkenrath, while Bensberg, a separate town until it joined, brings its palace and its own old centre. Between them lie woods, brooks and old manor houses such as Haus Lerbach and Burg Zweiffel.

Drive back from Cologne, see the land rise ahead of you, and Bergisch Gladbach feels like home again.