Experience the best of Münster

Münster, in Westphalia, is a flat, green university city about 100 km north-east of Düsseldorf. Its old centre was rebuilt after the Second World War, and the gabled merchants' houses of the Prinzipalmarkt lead to the Gothic town hall, where the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War, was agreed in 1648. Three iron cages still hang from the tower of St Lambert's church, where the bodies of three Anabaptist leaders were displayed in 1536.

The baroque Prince-Bishop's Palace now belongs to the university, with a botanical garden behind it. The Promenade, a tree-lined ring path on the line of the old ramparts, is a bicycle route, and locals ride so much that the bike has its own dialect name, Leeze. An art project, the Skulptur Projekte, has placed sculpture around the city every ten years since 1977. Moated castles dot the flat Münsterland countryside, among them Burg Hülshoff, birthplace of the poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff.

Westphalian ham, pumpernickel and Töttchen, a spiced ragout, are regional dishes, and the Münster market round the cathedral sells local cheese, sausage and vegetables. Winters are cold and damp, summers are mild with showers, and May to September is the best time for cycling the flat lanes and the Promenade.