Every design for Witten

From the Helenenturm, high above the town, Witten spreads out below: the Ruhr in its deep valley, the dammed Kemnader See and the wooded Ardey hills rising on both sides of the river. Witten lies in the south-east of the Ruhr area, between Dortmund, Bochum and Hagen, where the river cuts through a sandstone plateau on its way west.

The LWL-Industriemuseum Zeche Nachtigall tells the story that made the town. Coal mining here goes back centuries, Witten was a mining town long before the big industrial age, and in the Muttental the coal-bearing layers still come to the surface along a mining trail that passes the Bethaus der Bergleute. Haus Witten and the Märkisches Museum keep the older history close. Today life runs at a gentler pace: walkers on the valley paths, cyclists along the river and families by the lake at the weekend, a short ride from some of the biggest cities in the region.

A Witten childhood leaves its own routes on the map: down to the Ruhr, along the lake shore and up through the woods to a tower with a view over everything.