Gelsenkirchen

Gelsenkirchen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. Gelsenkirchen, like neighbouring cities, is refining its image promoting its industrial culture. Old refineries have been remodelled into event halls and ice skating rinks. Beautiful bike paths now lie where old rail lines ran. Art from old machines are a source of artistic expression.

Understand
Gelsenkirchen is a city of 260,000 people (2019) at the Ruhr region in the western part of the country, near major cities such as Düsseldorf and Cologne. Through coal mining, the Ruhr Region became the industrial heart of Germany and formed heavily populated cities. During World War II, due to its rich industrial value, the area was severely bombed. After the war, though, coal mining was severely curtailed, and large unemployment hit the region.


 * City of Gelsenkirchen tourist information

Get in
The Ruhr area, especially Gelsenkirchen, offers a wonderful public transportation system. Whether using the train, bus, streetcar/ trolley, or car, it is easy to plan your transportation to and from all your activities in and around Gelsenkirchen.

By plane
Nearest airports are located within 100 km from the city.
 * Dusseldorf International Airport, approx. ) away. Busiest airport in NRW state, continental and intercontinental routes. Most convenient to reach directly in under 1 hour on regional trains.
 * Dortmund International Airport, approx. . Budget flights to european destinations with a strong focus on eastern europe.
 * Cologne-Bonn Airport, approx. . 1.5 hours by car, 2 hours by train.

Train stations with connections to Gelsenkirchen are available at both airports.

By train
The city can be easily reached using the German train network InterCity-Express (ICE)and InterCity (IC) trains offer high speed connections between cities throughout Germany and popular European destinations. These trains travel up to 300 km/h and offer optimal comfort for long distance travel. ICE, IC and Eurostar also stop in nearby Essen, only a short few minutes by train from Gelsenkirchen. Stopping at Gelsenkirchen Hauptbahnhof are following regional and local train services:
 * RE2 Osnabrück - Münster - Gelsenkirchen - Essen - Duisburg - Düsseldorf Airport - Düsseldorf
 * RE3 Düsseldorf - Düsseldorf Airport - Duisburg - Oberhausen - Gelsenkirchen - Herne - Dortmund - Hamm
 * RE42 Münster - Gelsenkirchen - Essen - Duisburg - Krefeld - Viersen - Mönchengladbach
 * RB32 Duisburg - Oberhausen - Essen-Altenessen - Essen Zollverein Nord - Gelsenkirchen - Wanne-Eickel - Herne - Castrop-Rauxel - Dortmund
 * RB35 Gelsenkirchen - Essen Zollverein Nord - Essen-Altenessen - Oberhausen - Duisburg - Duisburg-Rheinhausen - Krefeld - Viersen - Mönchengladbach
 * RB46 Gelsenkirchen - Wanne-Eickel - Bochum-Riemke - Bochum-West - Bochum
 * S2 Dortmund - DO-Dorstfeld - DO-Mengede - Castrop-Rauxel - Herne - Wanne-Eickel - Gelsenkirchen - GE-Rotthausen - Essen-Kray Nord - Essen

Intercity transportation
The Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr Website offers a wonderful online planner in multiple languages for using the train and/ or bus in the Rhein-Ruhr area. The central Bus Stations are located at the Gelsenkirchen Main Train Station and in the center of Gelsenkirchen Buer. Tis website does not provide prices for your specific route-plan.

The official bus and tram/treetcar transportation provider in Gelsenkirchen and the surrounding area is BOGESTRA.

By car
Gelsenkirchen can be reached using the highway (Autobahn) A42, A2, A40, as well as the Bundesstraße B224/A52.

Public transport
Besides the central station (Gelsenkirchen Hauptbahnhof), where slow, regional and express train services stop, other useful rail stations are
 * on regional train RB43 Dortmund - Herne - Wanne-Eickel - Dorsten, for access to Gelsenkirchen Zoo
 * , on S-Bahn local train S9 Hagen - Wuppertal - Essen - Gelsenkirchen-Buer-Nord - Recklinghausen / Haltern am See, located to the north of Buer town centre, north of the Arena.

From the central station, Gelsenkirchen Hauptbahnhof, 3 trams and multiple bus routes leave. For tourists, the 3 trams are the most important:
 * Tram 302, starting in Bochum it arrives at Gelsenkirchen Hauptbahnhof, crosses the city centre underground and then crosses the city on the major north-south thoroughfare Kurt-Schuhmacher-Straße in a straight line, stopping at VELTINS-Arena at the and ending in Gelsenkirchen-Buer. On football match days and during events at the stadium this line will be served by everything the local transit company BOGESTRA can throw at it, but will still likely be completely overwhelmed. If you're headed for the Arena, be patient and listen to the guides, all others avoid immediately before and after.
 * Tram 301, starts and ends at Hauptbahnhof, diverges to the north-east after the city centre and passes by ZOOM zoo, before eventually meeting 302 in Buer and ending in the west near the border with Essen. There it'll connect to Tram U11 to Gruga Park via Essen city centre.
 * Tram 107, starts and ends at Hauptbahnhof, diverges to the west and runs to Essen city, passing the Trabrennbahn horse race track before leaving the city and passing Zollverein Mining Museum in Essen on its way to Essen Hauptbahnhof.

Local buses, some of them express routes, connect to all neighbouring cities.

Also underground tram stations and  in the city centre of Gelsenkirchen allow easy access to the city. Tickets, information updates and schedules are available via BOGESTRA. You must have a valid ticket before entering a tram in an underground station.

Check if your ticket to an event at the Arena includes travel in the Ruhr Area or even all of NRW, they often do! If you already have a VRR ticket, a ticket sold under the NRW-wide travels scheme like a e.g. SchönerTagTicketNRW, or a DeutschlandTicket, those will all be accepted on Gelsenkirchen public transport. If you don't already have a ticket, you can Tickets bought from machines might need to be stamped in one of the orange or red boxes located at station entrances and bus/tram doors before being valid. You face a penalty if caught without ticket by uniformed or plainclothes control agents.
 * use ticket machines at underground and other major stations to purchase one before boarding any vehicle
 * buy tickets from the driver of buses as well as trams while running on the surface, preferably with small cash, as they dont carry a lot of change
 * use the Muttis etarif or VRR apps, or use the eezy.nrw app which calculates fares based on distance but never charges more than a regular paper ticket.
 * buy tickets from dedicated newspaper agents

Disability information: All buses are low-floor and equipped with wheelchair ramps. Important bus stops usually have level boarding from raised stops.

All trams on 301 and 302 (white trams) are low-floor, on 107 (yellow trams) very rarely older high-floor stock are used as back-up vehicles. Both the white and yellow low-floor trams have large multi-use spaces at the 2nd and 4th; and 1st and 3rd doors respectively. The tunnel stations are accessible by lifts, including Hauptbahnhof (central station). If the lift there isn't working go one stop north to Heinrich-König-Platz station. The station directly at the arena is not wheelchair-accessible, exit at Willy-Brandt-Allee stop, 10 minutes to the actual stadium. In Gelsenkirchen, only Veltins-Arena and Emscherstraße tram stops are only reachable by stairs. Light rail U11 from uses high-floor vehicles at high-floor platforms accessed by ramps.

Stops are announced on board and shown on information screens. Many stops are equipped with a push-button text-to-speech system at the departure screen. Blind guide strips are being retrofitted as of 2024. Regular dogs thus including guide dogs are welcome.

By car
Like the rest of the Ruhr Area, Gelsenkirchen is very spread out and thus people rely on cars more than the german average. Roads and highway are well-maintained but crowded. You should not attempt to reach the stadium by car during large football matches, concerts etc. Parking spots can be found in a number of large car parks, for example next to the train station. Fares are reasonable and cheap.

Parking in residential streets is discouraged for visitors except when visiting relatives or friends and in many cases even outright forbidden without permits. Make sure to pay extra attention to signs and ask friends or family about parking. Where its allowed to the general public, you may need to throw some coins into parking ticket machines (Parkscheinautomat) standing on street corners, marked by tall signs displaying either a blue sign, the word Parkscheinautomat or a red arrow, and display the ticket clearly visible, preferably from the curbside, on your dashboard.

By bike or electric scooter
Bike infrastructure is lacking but slowly being improved. You can rent bikes via the Metropolradruhr bike hire scheme at stations throughout the city after signing up for it on your phone, which should take only minutes at most. Electric scooters can not be rented anymore since 20 April 2024. The city decided to ban them due to massive problems with vandalism, scooters blocking footpaths and reckless driving. Riding private ones is still permitted, but due to fire risks, carrying them on-board buses and trams is also forbidden since early 2024.

See
A relatively unvisited city, even within Germany, Gelsenkirchen offers enough to fill your day, especially if you're keen for cultural and industrial sights like football, arts and old heavy industry.



Do

 * Football:
 * Veltins Arena also hosts other events, such as rock concerts, operas and motorbike racing. Tours of the arena are available.
 * Football Fan Zone at Nordsternpark: During the UEFA European Championships 2024 a public event is held here and all matches played in Gelsenkirchen, and all matches of the german team, will be broadcast here. Free entry. Security will do pat-downs and bag searches at entrance.
 * Football Fan Zone at Nordsternpark: During the UEFA European Championships 2024 a public event is held here and all matches played in Gelsenkirchen, and all matches of the german team, will be broadcast here. Free entry. Security will do pat-downs and bag searches at entrance.

Buy
There are 2 major shopping areas:
 * Bahnhofstraße Gelsenkirchen's centre may not be what one can call a picturesque german city, but has all the common retail chains and a wide selection of restaurants.
 * Hochstraße Buer in the north acts as its own town centre and offers most amenities you'd expect to find in a small german town centre too. Arguably the less desolate of the two central districts.

Eat
Gelsenkirchen is not known for its excellent high cuisine, but still offers good food. The local cuisine has been influenced by past migrations, including from the middle-east in recent years.

Sleep
Depending on your budget, Gelsenkirchen offers multiple hotel options.

Go next

 * Essen, major city in the Ruhr Area, industrial heritage and modern culture. Nature in south of city.
 * Dortmund, beer, steel and football rival of Gelsenkirchen.
 * Hattingen, medieval city centre with alleys and timber framed houses.
 * Düsseldorf, capital of NRW state, fashion capitol and large Japanese community along the mighty Rhine.
 * Cologne, fourth largest German city of 1 million, Cologne Cathedral, Roman artefacts and lively LGBTQ scene.