Gießen: Nature, Culture and Hands-On Museums

Gießen combines a green setting with unusual museums and a wide range of cultural offerings. At the Botanical Garden, botanical history meets the garden as it is today; at the Mathematikum, visitors can explore mathematical phenomena through hands-on exhibits. Other highlights include the Lahn, Schwanenteich and the Lahn-Kinzig Trail. Depending on whether you want to focus on nature, shared discoveries, or theatre and history, you can choose Gießen as a destination for your trip and tailor your holiday apartment search to those interests.

Green Spaces and Trails Around Gießen

The Botanical Garden of Justus Liebig University Giessen is Germany’s oldest university botanical garden. Historic sections remain part of the garden today. One special area is the fragrance and touch garden, established in 2006 and designed to be accessible to blind visitors. It adds scents and tactile impressions to the experience of looking at plants. Those interested in the garden’s history will find a point of connection here, as will visitors who want to focus on sensory experiences.

The surrounding area is also green: the cityscape described here includes the Philosopher’s Forest and the Lahn, which winds through a gentle valley. Schwanenteich is a peaceful lake in a green floodplain, a few hundred metres from Gießen city centre. The Bergwerkswald nature reserve is also nearby, between Gießen and Linden. It has been protected since 1955 and was added to the European network of protected areas as a Special Area of Conservation in 2001.

If you would like to include a longer hike in your trip, consider the Lahn-Kinzig Trail: its third stage starts in Gießen. The long-distance hiking trail between the Lahn and Kinzig is designed as seven day hikes and is just under 130 kilometres long. The stage starting in Gießen offers a specific starting point for hiking enthusiasts; the total distance and division into stages can help you plan a hiking-focused trip.

Hands-On Museums and Unique Stories

The Mathematikum is the world’s first hands-on mathematics museum. Visitors can pick up and try out more than 170 exhibits to experience mathematical phenomena in a playful way. For younger children, there is the Mini-Mathematikum, where children aged four to eight can explore the fundamental topics of numbers, shapes and patterns in a variety of ways. When choosing activities to enjoy together, you can therefore consider whether a visit for adults and older children or an offering for children aged four to eight is a better fit.

The Gießkannenmuseum focuses on a very different subject. It has artistic roots, takes a participatory approach and is uniquely dedicated to watering cans. Public guided tours offer insights into the collections; temporary exhibitions and the stories behind donated watering cans are at the heart of the museum. This makes a visit an opportunity to look at everyday objects from an unfamiliar perspective.

At the Liebig Museum, visitors can explore the original workplaces of Justus Liebig, including the Old Laboratory, the Analytical Laboratory, the lecture hall, the library and his apartment. The Upper Hessian Museum is spread across three buildings in central Gießen. The Old Castle houses an art gallery as well as exhibition spaces for porcelain, sculptures and film. Whether you prefer to focus on a single historic site or explore different collections, these museums offer a range of cultural highlights.

Culture, Activities and Getting Around the City

The Gießen City Theatre offers a varied programme on two stages: musical theatre includes opera, operetta and musicals; there is also contemporary and classical drama, modern dance theatre, a year-round children’s and youth theatre, and a range of concert series. When planning your trip, you can therefore make performances and concerts a focus in their own right, alongside museum visits.

From March to December, the Gießen Tourist Information Office offers a varied programme of city tours. These include historic walking tours, food tours at the Gießen weekly market, experimental lectures in the style of Liebig’s time, and tours exploring the history of women in Gießen. The different themes offer a variety of ways to discover the city, from its history to more specific interests. The exact programme available during your trip depends on the time of year.

It is also worth noting that you can get around Gießen without your own car by using a rental bike, bus or car sharing. Gießen is relatively flat; within the city centre, cycling is especially fast, quiet, emission-free, affordable and flexible. When looking for accommodation, consider which of the interests described here matter most to you and how you would like to spend your days. The city offers ways to explore nature, science, history and the performing arts, without requiring you to focus your trip on just one of these themes.

Other local pages include Pohlheim, Reiskirchen, Biebertal, Laubach, Lollar, Wettenberg, Lich and Buseck.

For the broader travel overview: Gießen.