Explorer Kiel

St. Nikolai is the oldest building in Kiel, standing on the Alter Markt and dedicated to Saint Nicholas. Remodelled in Gothic Revival style in the 19th century, it was destroyed in the Second World War and rebuilt with a simpler interior; its furnishings include a 1340 bronze font and a 1705 carved pulpit.

The Kiel Maritime Museum occupies the former fish-market hall on the Sartorikai waterfront, built in 1910 by city architect Georg Pauly and converted into a museum in 1978. Its exhibits cover Kiel's fishing and shipbuilding history, alongside historic vessels moored outside on the Kiel Fjord.

The Zoological Museum of Kiel University displays zoological collections in a yellow-brick building designed by Martin Gropius and opened in 1881. Exhibits cover systematics, evolution, and the fauna of the tropics and of Germany, including specimens gathered on 19th-century expeditions such as the Galathea voyage and the German Plankton Expedition.

The Hörn Bridge is a pedestrian and cyclist bascule bridge across Kiel's inner fjord, built in 1997 to a design by gmp Architekten. Its three-section folding deck opens roughly once an hour to let boats pass between the harbour basin and the Gaarden district, and it links the ferry terminal with the main railway station.

The Old Botanical Garden began in 1825 as a private park and became Kiel University's botanical garden from 1878, redesigned by botanist Adolf Engler. It has been a public park since the university moved its collection to a new site in 1978, with mature trees including an old ginkgo, an 1891 brick pavilion, and two ponds.