Cloppenburg & Osnabrück

 Cloppenburg

The small market town of Cloppenburg boasts the Museumsdorf, the oldest open-air museum in Germany, established in 1934. On a vast site, 50 architectural monuments from all over Lower Saxony have been assembled.

There are houses, including charming examples of the halftimbered style of Wehlburg, windmills and a small 17th century church from Klein-Escherde near Hildesheim.

To the east of Cloppenburg lies Visbek. Here the visitor is taken back to the Stone Age, with megalithic graves from 3,500 to 1,800 BC, including the 80-m (262-ft) long grave known as “Visbeker Brautigam” (bridegroom) and the even larger, 100-m (321-ft) long “Visbeker Braut” (bride).

Museumsdorf Cloppenburg (Museum)

Address: Bether Straße 6

Tel: (04471) 94840

Timings: Mar–Oct: 9am–6pm daily, Nov–Feb: 9am–4:30pm daily.

 Osnabrück

This Westphalian town has been a bishop’s see since the time of Charlemagne. In 1648, negotiations took place here between representatives of Sweden and the Protestant duchies of the Reich.

The signing of the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years’ War, was announced from the town hall steps. It was also the birthplace of the writer Erich Maria Remarque in 1899.

Despite damage in World War II, the Dom St Peter, Osnabruck’s 13thcentury cathedral, is worth visiting. It has a bronze baptismal font and enormous triumphal cross, and the late-Gothic Snetlage-Altar of the Crucifixion. From here a short walk takes the visitor to the market square, Marienkirche and the Gothic Rathaus (town hall), with a sculpture of Charlemagne.

Environs South of Osnabruck is the western part of the Teutoburger Wald (Teutoburg Forest). The spa town of Bad Iburg, 12 km (8 miles) to the south of Osnabruck, has a monumental Benedictine monastery and bishop’s palace.

The Rittersaal (knights’ hall) is worth seeing, with its giant ceiling fresco depicting an architectural fantasy of foreshortened perspectives.