Dortmund travel guide

There is a way to get a bird's-eye view of Dortmund, as in no other city in the Ruhr area. It's the Florian Tower, since the Federal Garden Show of 1959 one of the most popular landmarks of the city, that makes it possible: The TV tower with its rotating restaurant (472 ft/150 m high) on the edge of Westfalia Park offers a unique view of the urban and industrial landscape. The former Hanseatic League city was founded by Charlemagne in 880 to set up a strategic position on the Hellweg, the most important trade route in the region. Of the 20 mines that once lavished Dortmund with coal, not a single one has been in operation since the 1990s. The growth sectors in Dortmund now include logistics, microsystem technology, biomedicine, and electronics; they have given the city tens of thousands of new jobs.