Things To Do With Kids in and around Düsseldorf, Germany
Outdoor Fun for kids in or near Dusseldorf
Petting zoo at the SudPark in Dusseldorf
Website
(currently closed). It is also free, and close to a nice café and
playground. Fun activity for the weekend, and the Sudpark also has a
great playground in the park too. They recently opened a new
water playground
near there, but we haven´t checked it out yet
Unterbachersee in Dusseldorf Website a small lake that you
can walk around in 3-4 hours (stroller friendly) with
beaches (enclosed with lifeguard) and
playgrounds. The beaches are not yet open, but when
they do I can recommend the south beach, as it is enclosed and with
lifeguards. Entrance fee is very low.
Website
. You can also rent barbecue spots at the North beach.
Wildpark in DusseldorfWebsite
– fantastic, free entrance area with animals in the
Grafenberg Wald in Dusseldorf, but you currently have
to book the tickets and they are always sold out. However, the
Grafenberg Wald is anyway a super nice place where to go for a walk in
the forest, with some playgrounds and mostly accessible paths even with
the stroller, so I can recommend for the weekends
Dusseldorf Playgrounds with water (Wasserspielplatz):Website
there are several, but our favorite is at the
Volksgarten. It is near a nice fish restaurant
Emmafish, so we will sometimes
combine the two
Dusseldorf Rhein beach Paradiesstrand Website
this is a city beach that you can walk to from the media hafen.It is
quite nice, both the walk (you take the pedestrian bridge that is close
to the Rheintower) and the beach.
However, the beach is not secured! With small kids you must be
extremely careful. Also, since it is not an “official”
beach, there are no bathrooms and no places where to get anything to
drink.
Circus activities for kids in Dusseldorf: Website
they have circus events regularly where you can go with kids and try out
circus activities. Check their Facebook page for upcoming
Wasserski LangenfeldWebsite
this is an awesome place! You can take water skiing lessons, access
their beach, or each at their restaurant watching others waterski. We
love it!
Auermuhle in Ratingen
Website a very kid friendly
restaurant with a large playground and hiking trails around it
Gertrudenhof close to Cologne in Lortzingstraße
160, 50354 Hürth Website
experiential farm with petting zoo and playgrounds entrance fee is 4
euro pp (children 3+) and you need to show a rapid test certificate no
older than 24h. They test also on the farm but you need to get an
appointment, from the website. You also need to book a ticket in advance
on the site which is then valid for 2,5h (although no one checked when
we were there)
Krewelshof a farm with two locations, one close to
Cologne with a
children´s area and corn maze, and the other close to the
Eifel, which I
recommend in September/October as they setup a cool pumpkin exhibition
(but this one is a bit further)
Arche Noah in Meerbusch
Website
a very nice petting zoo
Neuland in Leverkusen, which is a wonderful and curated
park with great playgrounds and a café with some small water
fountains for kids to play in;
Rollercoaster by foot Website
Walk on this fun rollercoaster – it´s a lot of steps!
Haus Bürgel in Monheim
Website a UNESCO heritage site
with a small roman museum, a biological station, and nice walking
through the Rhein marshes nearby. It’s closed until February
NaturGut Ophoven in Leverkusen
Website
a children´s educational center with indoor and outdoor
educational activities.
Ponyriding in Dormagen
Website
(there are many pony riding places, but we did it with them and we had
fun!)
KAP1, the new Dusseldorf library close to the train
station
Website, it just opened a couple of months ago and has a super nice
children´s area. There is also an
international children´s library Website
but they are currently closed and moving into a new location, still
within Dusseldorf
Cosmo Sports in Dusseldorf Website
an indoor sports complex where you can do tennis – soccer –
squash – bowling – climbing, several sport courses and with
a restaurant
Halle Mensch in Dusseldorf,
Websitean indoor beach
volleyball and climbing sports complex
Heinemann Café in Dusseldorf, they have the best
German style cakes in Dusseldorf and the stores / cafes are fun for kids
to visit.
Website
They always give a chocolate to Nathan😊
Science museums for kids:Odysseum in
Cologne https://www.odysseum.de/,
Explorado in Duisburg
Website
- Explorado is closed and moving, it should reopen in 2022,
Neandertal Museum
in Mettmannà this is a good area for kids, with playgrounds and
hiking nearby
Railway Museum in Bochum . They also run old trains but
currently due to covid the routes are closed.
Website
European Space Station in Cologne – in theory it
is possible to visit it, but it needs to be arranged with a group. Also,
I am not sure if small kids are allowed.. See more at the links:
Dreilandenpunt https://www.drielandenpunt.nl/the place where the borders of Germany, Belgium and Netherlands meet!
It is nice and there is a cool labyrinth
Open air museums: in normal times there are several
open air museums (freilichtmuseen) around here where they show how
people used to live years ago. They usually include animals and some
actors showing the way of life too. See a list here:
https://www.coolibri.de/magazin/freilichtmuseen-nrw/
Beach with fun in CologneBlackfoot Beach - Blackfoot Beach
– this includes an outdoor ropes course on the trees, probably
better for bigger kids
Drachenfels: close to Bonn. You can take this fun rail
https://www.drachenfelsbahn.de/index.php/de/
up to the old Drachenfels castle ruins
https://www.der-drachenfels.de/
from where you have a wonderful view of the Rhein valley. You can then
decide either to visit this
castle museum
nearby, or walk down, continue towards the riverfront and take a stroll
in the pedestrian area in Konigswinter. It´s a very nice day
activity.
Roermond: it is a city right at the border with the
Netherlands, with a great
Outlet center
open also on Sundays.
Xanten old roman settlement, you can both visit the
cute town https://xanten.de/ and the
open air museum where they show both the roman ruins and some
reconstructions they made
Website
Zollferein Coal Mine close to Essen
https://www.zollverein.de/ fun
and interesting to visit as it includes a museum with the history of the
Ruhr, but at the moment it seems closed
Schloss Benrath, Park, Rhein what we do when we go to
Benrath is that we start from the Rhein promenade (parking Benrather
Schloßufer 35, 40597 Düsseldorf), then walk into the park
from the park entrance at the Rhein (it´s just after the
Rheinterrasse, same street as the parking), walk through the park and if
we have time, grab an ice cream through the pedestrian area on the
Hauptstrasse
Starting from playground (Am Werth 2, 40789 Monheim
am Rhein) there is a great playground for kids and many
stroller-friendly walking trails along the Rhein. In normal times it
is also nice to walk though the old town and/or grab a drink on one of
the places that have a Rhein terrace
Starting from the ship museum (Klappertorstraße
38, 40789 Monheim am Rhein) there is a fun ship to visit, a great
Greek restaurant with a terrace on the Rhein, and different walking
paths along the river. If you walk upstreams, you will also get to the
ferry that goes to Zons
https://www.faehren-fahrplan.de/faehre-zons
Zundorfer Groovhttps://www.komoot.com/highlight/156183
- parking here: Trankgasse 15, 51143 Köln - a very nice, stroller
friendly pedestrian / walking area located on a half island in the south
of Cologne where they have some nice playgrounds, traditional
gastronomy, ice cream parlors and Rhein river beach. There is even a
cute pedestrian ferry you can take from one side of the river to the
other. There is also a wonderful swimming pool here:
https://www.koelnbaeder.de/bad/zuendorfbad/attraktionen/
Schloss BurgCastle (translates
roughly to “Castle Castle”) in Solingen
https://www.schlossburg.de/start
– fun castle, nice museum, nice cafes and restaurants around it,
and if you park under the hill, a
lift will bring you up to it
Altenberg in the Bergisches Land
https://odenthal-altenberg.de/, another nice pedestrian walking area where you can admire an
impressive
cathedral,
enjoy some food and stroll around. Normally there is also a storyland
amusement park there too
https://www.maerchenwald-altenberg.de/. If you go there, close by is a nice farm with a shop
https://thomashof-burscheid.de/. There is also a cool walking path from the farm to the cathedral, but
I would not recommend it with a stroller.
Monschau,
https://www.monschau.de/en/a
wonderful traditional German town that is just a beauty to walk through,
in the Eifel
Zons http://www.zons-am-rhein.info/
very pretty town with a historical center that you can walk through and
some nice traditional restaurants
Hiking in the Neandertal area (close to
Dusseldorf)à there is even a bison reserve! (please note this
area is hilly, so difficult with a stroller)
https://www.wildgehege-neandertal.de/index_e.htm
Hiking in Ahrtal with Winery visit https://www.ahrtal.de/aktivitaeten/wandern/
and wine tasting, at
Max Schell (they have wine
tasting booths in front) or at
Weinhaus Klas & Son. But I
do not know how much these places have been affected by the floods, as I
haven´t been there since. I´d recommend you check before
going.
Grafenwerth Island on the Rhein, below Bonn – reachable from the mainland and nice to stroll, with activities for
kids and restaurantsWebsite
Picking chestnuts and acorns at the Grafenberg Wald between end
September and mid-October: you can pick the chestnuts along the main road that accesses the
forest, and then you can exchange them for small pocket money to the
animal park
Website
or for sweets at the Haribo factory in Solingen
Website
(check the Haribo website in September and they will have more info)
Halloween party for kids at the end of October at the
Neuss international school organized by AIWCD (American International
Women´s Club Dusseldorf)
Website. I
was there a couple of times and it´s a fantastic event for kids!
Music festival in September in Dormagen
https://knechtsteden.com/ this
is a nice place to visit, there is a cool playground at this site and
nice walks around