Explorer Münster

Münster Cathedral, seat of the Catholic Diocese of Münster, stands on a low rise called the Horsteberg in the city centre. The present building, raised between 1225 and 1264, incorporates the twin-towered westwork of its 12th-century predecessor and is dedicated to Saint Paul.

The LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur traces its roots to the Westphalian Art Association, founded in 1831, and moved into its present building in September 2014. The collection ranges from late Gothic painting and sculpture to Cranach-family works and Der Blaue Reiter modernism.

The Prinzipalmarkt is Münster's historic main market street, lined with gabled merchant houses linked by continuous ground-floor arcades. It runs from St. Lambert's Church in the north to the Stadthausturm in the south, with the Historical City Hall midway along its eastern side. Largely destroyed in World War II, it was rebuilt true to the original from 1947 to 1958.

The Historical City Hall of Münster, at Prinzipalmarkt 10, is a Gothic civic building famed as the venue for the 1648 negotiations of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War. Rebuilt true to its original form after wartime damage, it houses the Friedenssaal, the hall where the peace was signed.

St. Lambert's Church is a late-Gothic hall church on the north side of the Prinzipalmarkt in Münster, dedicated to Lambert of Maastricht. Three iron cages still hang from its tower, placed there in 1536 to display the bodies of the executed leaders of the Münster Rebellion, among them Jan van Leiden.

The Erbdrostenhof is a three-wing late Baroque palace on Salzstraße in Münster, built between 1753 and 1757 by architect Johann Conrad Schlaun for Adolf Heidenreich Freiherr Droste zu Vischering, the city's Erbdrost. Today it houses offices of the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe and a Baroque festival hall.

Schloss Münster was built between 1767 and 1787 as the Baroque residence of the prince-bishops of Münster, designed by architect Johann Conrad Schlaun from local Baumberger sandstone. Since 1954 it has served as the seat of the University of Münster; visitors can walk the surrounding Schlossgarten park, though the building itself is not open for public tours.

The Aasee is an artificial lake in central Münster, built in stages between 1914 and 1934 and expanded between 1972 and 1976 to nearly double its size. A roughly 5.7-kilometre path circles the water, passing sailing clubs, boat rentals and the Allwetterzoo on its western bank.

Münster Zoo, known locally as the Allwetterzoo, opened at its current site by the Aasee in 1974, replacing an older zoo founded in 1875. Spread across 30 hectares, it keeps several thousand animals from hundreds of species and takes part in international breeding programmes.