Explorer Bonn

The Old Town Hall on Bonn's Marktplatz is a Rococo building completed in 1738 to a design by court architect Michael Leveilly, fronted by a grand double staircase used for public appearances. Rebuilt after wartime bombing, it is no longer the seat of city government but still hosts official receptions and civic ceremonies.

The Beethoven House is the house where composer Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770. Founded in 1889 by the Beethoven-Haus association, the complex today operates as a museum, archive and research centre dedicated to Beethoven's life and work, and also hosts chamber-music concerts.

Bonn Minster is a Catholic church built between the 11th and 13th centuries, making it one of Germany's oldest churches. As the principal church of the Archbishop-Elector's residence, it once served as the de facto cathedral of the Archbishopric of Cologne, and today holds the rank of minor basilica. Its towers inspired Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

The LVR-Landesmuseum Bonn traces its origins to an antiquities museum founded in 1820, one of Germany's oldest museums. Run by the Rhineland regional authority (LVR), it reopened in 2003 after extensive renovation as a themed museum. Its collection spans some 400,000 years, with notable Roman-era sculpture and a focus on the Rhineland's cultural history.

Poppelsdorf Palace is a Baroque palace in Bonn's Poppelsdorf district, begun in 1715 for the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne to a design associated with the French architect Robert de Cotte. Rebuilt in simplified form after wartime damage, it now belongs to the University of Bonn and is ringed by the Botanical Garden of Bonn.

Museum Koenig is a natural history museum and zoological research institution in Bonn, opened in 1934 and named after Alexander Koenig, who donated his specimen collection to found it. Since 2001 it has formed the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change with the Museum of Nature Hamburg, and displays dioramas and specimens from the natural world.

Haus der Geschichte is a museum of contemporary German history in Bonn, tracing the country's story from the end of the Second World War to the present. With around one million visitors a year, it is one of Germany's most-visited museums and the flagship of a foundation that also runs sister sites in Leipzig and Berlin.

The Kunstmuseum Bonn is an art museum on Bonn's Museum Mile, founded in 1947 and housed since 1992 in a building designed by Axel Schultes. Its collection centres on Rhenish Expressionism and German art after 1945, including works by Joseph Beuys, August Macke and Georg Baselitz.

The Bundeskunsthalle is the Federal Republic of Germany's national exhibition hall in Bonn, built in 1989-1992 next to the Kunstmuseum Bonn on the city's Museum Mile. It holds no permanent collection, instead hosting changing exhibitions on art, cultural history and science from Germany and abroad.

The Godesburg is a ruined hilltop castle in Bad Godesberg, a district of Bonn, built from 1210 for the Archbishop of Cologne on a volcanic hill. Largely destroyed in an 1583 siege, its surviving round keep was rebuilt in 1959 and now contains a restaurant, while the ruined outer walls remain open to the public.