Kassel doesn’t get a lot of classic tourist love. Some of this has to do with the fact that the old city center was mostly destroyed during WWII, and rebuilt in a ‘contemporary’ style. But don’t let that deter you from visiting. Home to the Brothers Grimm, a great nightlife, loads of contemporary art, incredible green space, a coffin museum (!), and enough nightlife to help you forget the coffin museum, Kassel may not be the cutest city in the world. But it offers a side of Germany that is young, emerging, and authentic.

Start with a Great View: the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe

A UNESCO World Heritage site, the Bergpark Wilhelmshöhe absolutely offers one of the best views in all of Germany. When you walk to the top of the waterworks – which include a 1,150-foot-long cascading water terrace that is just incredible – you’ll have an amazing view of the city.

In fact, you might not notice the city for a while because the artificial waterfall, which is literally one of a kind in terms of sheer size and scope, will take your breath away. So will the accompanying system of canals, waterways, caves, and terraces is beautiful. And complex. And inspiring, considering that construction on it began more than 300 years ago.

There’s more to the park than just the waterfall, so take your time wandering around it. It is also an excellent spot to visit anytime of year. In fact, visits during fall and winter can seem almost mystical: when mist rises from the water at the waterfall, it feels like you’ve just stepped back in time a few centuries.

Embrace the Fairy Tale: the Brothers Grimm Museum

Two of Germany’s biggest celebrities remain Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, who were both born in the 1780s and who are better known as the Brothers Grimm. Before Disney took some of their best characters to the bank (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty), the Grimm brothers were two literary specialists who took a methodical approach to collecting and recording tales that had been passed down through oral storytelling. Their work forever changed the way that children’s stories were told and shared throughout the world.

The GrimmWelt (or Grimm World) museum is well worth a visit. Built in 2015, it’s a quick, entertaining way to immerse yourself in a little bit of fairy tale magic. And it is also surprisingly moving to see some of the Grimms’ original handwritten work.

Bask in the Cool Coolness of the Documenta

Yep. ‘Cool’ was repeated twice there. One of Kassel’s rightful claims to fame is that it is home to the Documenta, which is a world-renowned modern art exhibition that takes place once every five years. When it happens, the exhibition lasts for about three months, is filled with sound, color, unexpected art, and the occasional controversy. The next one doesn’t start until June 2027. So put it on your calendars.

But if you’re not into the Documenta (or if you miss the window), you can still visit the Museum Fridericianum, which is a sort of partner institution, and which lives in a gorgeous building. The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday and on public holidays from 11 am – 6 pm, and on Thursdays from 11 am – 8 pm.

For fun, visit the Vertical Earth Kilometer, which is located in the park outside the museum. This ‘sculpture’ is a 1,600-meter brass rod that goes…downward. Into the earth. For one kilometer. Which makes it hard to admire, of course. But you can hover over a small-ish stone square in the earth and ponder the fact that a very long metal rod is stretching a very long way down.

One Unusual Afternoon Visit Before You Relax for the Night

So Germany does offer a fair number of things like medieval torture museums, ossuaries, and the like. But the Museum of Sepulchral Culture is on a whole different level, and not necessarily in the way you might think.

Dedicated to the idea that memory and mourning are natural and necessary, and to different cultures of dying and mourning around the world, the museum presents a range of coffins, burial shrouds, hearses, and other sepulchral paraphernalia. The building itself is also quite unexpected: not dark at all, but rather the opposite. Closed Mondays, the museum is open 10 a.m. – 5 p.m all other days.

Getting to Kassel

By car, Kassel is approximately 3 hours from Kaiserslautern, 2 hours from Wiesbaden, and 4 hours from Stuttgart. Check with Deutsche Bahn for train options.

Featured image by Felix Kroll / Shutterstock.com