Façade tour

The main item on the agenda today is street art. Let us set out on my treasure hunt across the city. It starts out easy for me as I spot the first mural right next to the main railway station. The entire wall of the house is glowing in bright berry colours and sports a sad-looking woman on the right. I wonder what has her feeling like that? It surely isn’t that bad in Paderborn, I think to myself as a die-hard fan of Bielefeld. No, NRW city rivalries do exist outside of the Rhineland as well. Let’s be honest, though: Paderborn isn’t just “not that bad”, it’s actually pretty nice, even beyond the brightly coloured open-air art.

Travellers can leave it to chance whether and where they come across some graffiti and murals in East Westphalia’s second-largest city. They don’t have to, though. That’s why I downloaded “Actionbound”, the app associated with the Paderborn graffiti tour, to make sure that I wouldn’t miss a single piece of art and could walk through the city centre with my attention directed at all the right things. The same is possible on a guided tour as well. I personally, however, only check out the background information on the artists or the pieces of art in the app. Some come as texts, some as videos, and I even get to solve a puzzle here or there. This allows me to discover a different side of Paderborn. I like the way street art blends into the cityscape where old and brightly coloured things meet, such as in the historical town hall or the Paderquell area. My favourite mural is a particularly cordial one. Speaking of hearts: before I make my way to Westphalia’s show-off monument – Schloss Corvey – I need to stop at the Markt 5 Café to enjoy the Berliner-Luft-Torte. A fluffy raspberry meringue layered cake that is just about perfect, with a view of the cathedral in the historical old town.

It takes me about an hour’s journey through the varied Weserbergland landscape to get to my destination, and I can hardly wait to reach Altenbeken, which certainly is my highlight on this route. I can see the Altenbeken viaduct, a massive stone railway bridge that seems to float above the valley even from afar. The regional train is approaching it with slowly increasing altitude. Soon, I feel as if I were floating. The houses in Altenbeken look like miniatures as I enjoy a panoramic view during the crossing. The next stop is in Bad Driburg. It’s almost a shame that I’m not getting off here. Sitting on the left in the direction of travel, I can see the manicured grounds of the Gräflicher Park pass by. They’re just too beautiful. I am going to need plenty of time for my visit to Schloss Corvey, though.

Once at the Höxter railway station, I have three options for getting to the Unesco World Heritage site. I can walk, take the bus, or sail on the “Flotte Weser”. Schloss Corvey is located next to Höxter on the Weser promenade and has a jetty of its own. That’s pretty cool. I still choose to walk instead. Hiking along the Weser promenade certainly is a special experience. I’m also partly walking on the grounds of the State Garden Show here, which connects the half-timbered town of Höxter to the World Heritage site and has a few surprises in store. I take a short break at the water garden in the forest, which looks like an old castle ruin. It’s very idyllic. Soon after, the former Benedictine monastery Schloss Corvey with its two striking towers, the Carolingian westwork, comes in sight.

The only fully preserved Carolingian westwork in the world is located here in rural Höxter, making it a unique testimony to early medieval architecture. I am particularly fascinated by the Carolingian wall paintings inside the westwork, showing vivid biblical scenes, impressive figures of saints, and beautiful decorative patterns. These works of art shine in vibrant colours of red, blue, and gold, impressing with the clear contours and detailed depiction of their figures. The bright colours make the pictures virtually seem to glow and turn the visit into a memorable experience! Schloss Corvey also is architecturally impressive in some other respects. Medieval structures meet baroque elegance. The next stop is the princely library, infused with the scent of old leather, paper, and wood. Literary treasures from the past are everywhere, giving the place a special aura that continues outside in the monastery garden. There, a blooming paradise protected by tall monastery walls has its very own magic. I don’t really want to leave yet, but there are some other magical places waiting for me still.

“Next stop Detmold”. Oh, Detmold. I’ve always known your beauty, but it’s been a long time since I last visited. Right now, it feels just like coming home. I am thinking of countless family and school trips here. It’s obvious why I love this place so much, with its castle surrounded by the castle pond with its weeping willow; the many half-timbered houses, some of which are hidden in narrow alleyways, or the river Werre, meandering through the city and always offering a picture-book background. It all looks beautiful. I amble past the castle pond, enjoying the sun through the treetops. Coming around a small bend, I catch my first glimpse of the Fürstliches Residenzschloss Detmold palace, affording the perfect photo motif together with its U-shaped pond. Across from it, the Lippische Landesmuseum brings the region’s history from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages to life. I might go and refresh my knowledge there, but I actually feel rather like having a cup of ice cream right now. Let it be vanilla and strawberry. That may be a bit boring, but I know that I’m going to love it, just as I know that I love being in pretty little Detmold, and how much I can enjoy all the beautiful things around my home region, now that I think of it. My next destination will be Lemgo, which is about half an hour away on the bus line 790.

The bus carries me directly from the main railway station to my destination in Hamelner Straße, Lemgo. It’s a perfectly normal street, lined with some perfectly normal houses. If Lippe were not my hometown, which means that I know exactly where I am going here, I would not be thinking any further than this. As I walk unsuspectingly past a green hedge, I probably would be freezing in amazement.

One house on Hamelner Strasse is clearly out of line. It’s the Junkerhaus, or number 36. Standing side by side with all the other residential buildings as if it were just another one of them, it is a complete piece of art made of wood that we used to call a fairytale house. Architect, painter, and wood sculptor Karl Junker used to live here and continued to add to his home over a period of two decades, turning it into the artist’s house that it still is today. More specifically: He carved it to be that.

It's all made of wood. When I enter the adjacent museum building my path first takes me to the exhibition hall to get me in the right mood for Karl Junker’s world with oil paintings, architectural sketches, and crafted furniture. Genius and madness are really close together, I think as I enter the house, hearing it crunch and creak around me. Of course it smells of wood. Where to look first now? I have no idea. Sometimes the murals demand my attention, at other times it’s individual pieces of furniture like a secretary desk or a workbench. Many times, I lose myself in looking up at the ceiling. The knobbly wall ornaments appear like a labyrinth to me. That might be a me-thing, though. While I find them fascinating, they do send a shiver down my spine every once in a while when I think of what a hermit Junker must have been living here. I look back again as I stand on the pavement in front of the house. It’s a piece of art inside and out. It’s perfectly unique.

I myself certainly am no hermit and I’m still in the mood for a bit of hustle and bustle now. Since I’m back in Lemgo already, I naturally turn my steps to the old historical town centre about a kilometre away. The Hanseatic old town in Lippe always is a real gem for me. Walking through the old town centre, it’s a good idea to keep looking up – where each gabled house is more beautiful than the last. They grow older and older, too. This one was built back in 1556. Might any of them be even older than that? The longer I stroll through the alleyways, the more I am feeling that this is a proper jewel. The feeling is further amplified by the existence of the self-service shop, among other places, where engraved barbecue tongs and bottle openers or wooden signs with “Lemgoliebe” lettering are on display. The “Die Komplizen aus der Region” shop draws my attention, too, a city farm shop with regional and seasonal produce as well as handmade products from the region. The “accomplices” offering their wares here share their store and their staff. It’s a cool project, with cool products. I continue on my way until I have reached the market square, the old town’s centrepiece. Where else, if not here, should I take my coffee break? Well, of course there are also some opportunities for it in the rather fragrant Bad Salzuflen, my next stop along my trip.

Though I’m not exactly moving in floral fragrances today, I’m immersing myself in maritime scents. I get off in Bad Salzuflen, another East Westphalian place with a pretentious old town. As I have said before: I know my home state quite well, and since Bad Salzuflen’s old town is only a stone’s throw away from the station, I set out for it straight away. It’s not long before I spot the truly magical market square, dominated by the impressive Weser Renaissance town hall and topped by all the pretty restored half-timbered houses. For the first time, I realise the city’s astonishing number of fountains. I stroll through the winding alleyways to the spa gardens and can hear the object of my desire splashing before I lay eyes on it. I can smell it, too, of course. Sea air in the Teutoburg Forest – I love it. The huge wooden graduation towers never cease to amaze me. They even look like pieces of art. I watch the brine water run down the walls, creating a fine mist that covers the surroundings like a veil. It’s a holiday to go, and I spend some time walking up and down here before making my way back to the station. Then I’m off to Herford without a stopover in between – once again only a short journey away. 

I’m no more than five minutes from the object of my desire when I reach the main station. The Marta Herford, a museum for contemporary art, design, and architecture, is a work of art in itself, even from the outside. Designed by famous architect Frank Gehry, it captures attention and attracts all eyes. Rust-coloured steel, glass, and concrete merge in dynamic forms. The different heights and depths of the façades give the Marta an incredible presence. I can’t stop myself from taking pictures from a number of directions. Once again, the façade isn’t all there is to it, as I am impressed to see upon entering. I briefly consider stopping for refreshments in the museum café, which is idyllically situated on the banks of the small river Aa, after the exhibition, but I end up walking through the old town on my way back to the railway station instead to stop at Gänsemarkt. That, I think, is the most beautiful place Herford has to offer. Surrounded by half-timbered façades, the cute market square is just the place for a break before my multi-faceted façade tour comes to an end. But it could just as well still go on to Bielefeld. It’s less than 10 minutes by train from the station to the largest – and for me the most beautiful – city in East Westphalia.