Accepting an invitation to visit a friend who lives in the Ruhr area of Northern Germany, I expected to find myself in a grim landscape of collieries and factories. For much of the 20th century it was the largest industrial area in Europe, famed for its production of coal, iron, steel and beer.

No more! Most of the heavy industry has gone and only four of 150 collieries are still in operation. Underlining this transformation, the whole area, encompassing 53 towns and cities, will be involved in this year’s cultural celebrations.

The southern part of the region around Sprockhovel where I stayed is surprisingly rural. The Ruhr river flows through it, past gently undulating hills covered by forests and farmland. Church spires and castle ruins peep through woods; the older village houses are half-timbered. In the 1,000-year-old chapel in the village of Stiepel, medieval murals have recently been uncovered.

The countryside can easily be explored from a well-signed network of footpaths or on the 145-mile cycle trail beside the Ruhr and the slender Lake Baldeney. The lake skirts Essen and is popular for sailing and boat trips.

Concerts and museums

Already arts are well-catered for in the area. I enjoyed excellent concerts at new halls with superb acoustics in both Essen and Dortmund, which have their own opera houses (with ticket prices way below what you have to pay in the UK). Also in Essen, the Folkwang Museum houses a world-renowned collection of Impressionist paintings. On the edge of the city, the Villa Hugel, a 220-room mansion, regularly stages art exhibitions. Built in 1868, it was the home of the Krupp family who owned many of the Ruhr’s factories.

In Dortmund, the Museum Am Ostwall, devoted to works by 20th and 21st-century artists, is to move into a specially converted arts centre in the city’s iconic ‘U’ building. This seven-storey warehouse was formerly part of the Dortmunder-Union brewery.

Of course there is still plenty of evidence of the area’s grimy and more prosperous past. Th e skyline is dotted with chimneys, colliery winding wheels, gasometers and other industrial relics, but around them nature is taking over again. Inevitably most of the Ruhr’s tourist attractions refl ect its industrial side. In Essen for instance, the Zollverein, once Europe’s biggest colliery, was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO when it closed in 1986. Guided tours weave through the rusting machinery of the cavernous building where coal was washed and graded. The 500 acres of Landschaftspark on the edge of Duisburg has as its centrepiece a former open-air foundry. A series of metal staircases enable you to climb up past the massive blast furnaces, and then enjoy a rooftop view, over 61m (200ft) up.

Close by stands a gasometer, filled with water and transformed into a scuba-diving centre, complete with a wrecked ship and artifi cial reef! Beside it the concrete walls of old ore storage bunkers have become climbing walls where instruction and equipment are available if you feel like having a go.

Most impressive of all, from dusk to 2am every weekend the foundry is floodlit in vivid colours, imaginatively showing off the machinery’s stark shapes.

Duisburg itself boasts Europe’s largest inland port, a series of canals off the Ruhr, which flows into the Rhine nearby. Now handling considerably fewer ships and barges, part of it has been attractively redesigned by Sir Norman Foster. Old warehouses have become offices overlooking a marina where restaurants spread their tables across a waterside promenade. While there, I took the opportunity to sample a typical Ruhr currywurst – a long sausage in a tasty sauce with chips – washed down, of course, with a glass of local bier.

Konigsstrasse, the main shopping area in Duisburg, is a broad pedestrianised street sporting two fountains and lined with shops and cafés. Th e roof terrace at the top of the smart Karstadt department store – a favourite of mine – provides great views.

Even better, however, are those from the top of Oberhausen’s Gasometer, the tallest in Europe. Redundant in 1988, this vast cylinder – 39m (128ft) high and 22.5m (74ft) across – has been turned into what must surely be the world’s most extraordinary exhibition centre with a metal balcony built above the circular ground floor. The roof, high above, had a giant moon suspended from it when I was there, part of a fascinating exhibition on the planets.

The excellent museum at Bochum at the 100-year-old former Zollern Colliery near Dortmund shows what a miner’s life used to be like. How times have changed for the people of the Ruhr!

Further information

For information on 2010 events, visit:

www.ruhr2010.de

www.ruhr-tourismus.de

www.germany-tourism.co.uk , tel: 020 7317 0908

DERTOUR, which specialises in travel to Germany, can arrange flights, rail tickets and accommodation – www.dertour.co.uk , tel: 0871 231 3433.