Discover Kempen
Accommodation in Kempen
Kempen combines a historic old town with cultural venues, traditional festivals and cycling routes that start and end in the city. You can tailor your trip to whether you mainly want to explore architectural history and museums, experience a market or use Kempen as a starting point for a cycling tour. This focus is also helpful when looking for a holiday apartment: it shows which experiences you want to shape your stay.
City gate in Kempen, district of Viersen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
Photo: Palickap via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Castle, architectural history and museums
A striking historic site is the Electoral Cologne State Castle. It was built between 1396 and 1400 and rebuilt in the neo-Gothic style from 1856 to 1863 following a fire. This makes it possible to distinguish two clear phases of construction: its origins in the late 14th century and its neo-Gothic reconstruction in the 19th century. If you are interested in history and architecture, you can make this contrast a central part of your exploration of Kempen.
The Kramer Museum is housed in the Franziskanerkloster Cultural Forum. The Lower Rhine Museum of Sacred Art is also located in the cultural forum’s monastery church. The church is also used for the “Kempener Klosterkonzerte” (Kempen Monastery Concerts). The cultural forum thus brings together museum visits and concerts at one named cultural venue, so you can take both art and music interests into account when planning.
The church square is also part of the historic townscape: there, Kempen honors Thomas a Kempis with a monument in the shadow of the provost church. Another special attraction is the Tönisberg post mill. Its sails are 18 metres long. Gut Heimendahl, meanwhile, is a listed ensemble of more than 650 years of regional importance. These sites offer culture enthusiasts various reasons to explore Kempen’s history and architecture.
Markets and traditional festivals
Traditional festivals in Kempen include Carnival, St. Martin’s Day and the fair. Markets are also a prominent part of the local calendar: at the Mid-Lent Market, more than 200 traders gather in the historic old town on the third Tuesday of Lent. The Hubertus Market also brings more than 200 traders together there every year on 3 November. If you want to plan your stay around a market, you can take these fixed dates into account when planning your trip.
The “Markt der Sterne” (Market of Stars) Christmas market takes place in the historic atmosphere of the old town. Along with the traditional festivals, it offers another reason to discover Kempen at a particular time of year. When planning, you can weigh up these date-specific experiences against the other focuses of your trip.
Explore Kempen by bike
There are twelve cycling tours to choose from in Kempen, all starting and ending in the city. One of them is the Kempener Grenzsteinweg (Kempen Boundary Stone Trail): this cycling tour around Kempen is 38 kilometres long and leads to 13 stops featuring more than 100 historic boundary stones. It offers a tangible way to explore the history of the boundary stones, as well as a clearly defined route length that you can take into account when planning your day.
Another option is the signposted Kempener Land circular cycle route. It passes through fields by Königshütte and along Königshütte Lake. If you want your cycling tour to take in fields and these two named landmarks, you can compare this circular route with the boundary stone trail: one focuses on stops and historic boundary stones, while the other follows a route through fields by Königshütte and the lake. Each cycling route has its own character, distinguishable by the features described.
The old town and green spaces around the town centre
A green belt laid out around the historic town centre offers places to take a short break. This lets you complement a visit to the old town with a pause in green surroundings. There is also a useful point of reference for arriving by train: Kempen station is just a two-minute walk from the historic old town.
When looking for a holiday apartment in Kempen, you can consider whether culture and the historic town centre, a market visit or cycling tours should be the focus of your trip. The city brings these different themes together, from the cultural forum and castle to the markets and tours that start and end in Kempen. Choose the focus that suits your travel plans and use it as a guide when choosing your holiday accommodation.
More destination pages: Nettetal, Grefrath, Niederkrüchten, Brüggen, Willich, Schwalmtal, Tönisvorst, Viersen.
Back to the main travel overview: Viersen.
.jpg){kind=link}