A four-sailed brick windmill, the Stommeln Synagogue with its permanent sound installation, and Brauweiler Abbey offer different ways to explore Pulheim. Haus Orr’s landscape park and green spaces for nature outings round out the offer. When planning your trip, you can decide whether to focus on architectural and religious history, art or time outdoors.

Stommeln: Windmill, Jewish Heritage and Art

The four-sailed brick tower windmill in Pulheim-Stommeln is documented from the 16th century and was built between 1860 and 1864. Its sails have been preserved. The mill is also a listed archaeological monument and serves as a landmark despite being located within the town. A Jewish cemetery dating from before 1861 lies directly next to it.

Built in 1882, Stommeln Synagogue is now the only preserved Jewish house of worship in the Rhein-Erft district. It is home to Max Neuhaus’s permanent sound installation “Time Piece Stommeln”. Its timing between sunrise and sunset is based on Jewish religious law. The sound signal rings thirteen times a day, with the intervals changing according to the position of the sun. In 1991, the town of Pulheim also launched the art project “Synagoge Stommeln” at the synagogue, an exhibition series featuring internationally renowned artists.

Several places commemorate Christina of Stommeln: her tomb at the old St. Martin’s Church, the Christina Chapel, the Christina School, the retirement home at Christinapark and the large monument by Olaf Höhn, which has stood on the Stommeln village green since 1999. The Stommeln Local History Museum offers a walk following in the footsteps of Blessed Christina of Stommeln. If you would like to include it in your plans, check the latest dates in advance.

Brauweiler and Orr: Guided Tours, Exhibitions and a Listed Garden

Brauweiler Abbey offers public guided tours every day, as well as exclusive tours for private groups. A different perspective is provided by the permanent exhibition “1,000 Years of Brauweiler Abbey: A Place of Rhenish History”, which traces the abbey’s history of more than a thousand years and its transformations through selected original objects, written sources, photographs and audiovisual media. The tour and exhibition therefore offer two different ways to explore the history of the site.

Haus Orr is set in a large landscape park on the Rhine, on an artificially created hill. The villa was built in 1838, probably by Ernst Friedrich Zwirner, in the Neo-Gothic style, based on a design by Schinkel for Cologne banker Peter Daniel Koch. The park was continuously expanded until 1890 and is listed as a garden monument in its own right in the City of Pulheim’s register of monuments. Activities organised by the supporting association make access possible for visitors. Find out about these activities before your visit.

Nature and Travel Planning

Green spaces are also part of what Pulheim has to offer: the Nordpark and nearby forests around the town invite you to get out into nature. Together with the preservation of the historic garden at Haus Orr, they offer a different focus from the buildings and art venues in Stommeln and Brauweiler. The themes you choose to explore can help guide your plans for your stay.

For a broader regional perspective, the wider travel destination of the Rhein-Erft district offers castles, palaces, museums and historic mills among its attractions. As part of the Rhenish Bay, the district is one of the regions in Germany with the most water castles. Hiking, cycling and water sports are other leisure activities in the district; there is also a dedicated water-castle cycling route. This regional selection is distinct from what Pulheim itself offers and provides a separate perspective for planning a wider-ranging trip.

Pulheim is on the Cologne–Mönchengladbach railway line and near Cologne/Bonn and Düsseldorf airports. For your specific journey, check connections and timetables for your travel date. When looking for a hotel in Pulheim, you can first decide whether you would like to focus your stay on cultural history, art and exhibitions, or nature. Then you can plan around the visits that matter most to you.

Discover more destinations: Brauweiler, Erftstadt, Frechen, Bedburg, Hürth, Elsdorf, Brühl, Wesseling

For the regional travel overview: Rhein-Erft district.