The museum landscape of the three cities of Remscheid, Solingen and Wuppertal is colourful and varied

Art lovers will strike it rich at the Von-der-Heydt Museum in Wuppertal: you can see 3,000 paintings, 400 sculptures and 30,000 graphic images from several centuries in changing exhibitions. All originals of course. But things are a little different at Museum Plagiarius in Solingen: guess which is real and which idea has been stolen. At the Röntgen Museum in the old town of Lennep, you’ll not only see through glass mannequins. You can also experiment with x-rays.

Hammers, cottages and forges in the Wupper valley are stone witnesses to days gone by. Be amazed and try things out. This is how people worked when industrialisation began and production was revolutionised. The Bergisches Land is considered to be the cradle of such progress. Visit the Deutsches Klingenmuseum (German Blade Museum), Textilstadt Wülfing and the Deutsches Werkzeugmuseum (German Tool Museum). You will understand why.

Not everyone saw it like this. Friedrich Engels considered industrialisation to be a threat. As the enslavement of humanity. 2020 marks the 200th birthday of the co-founder of socialism. Plenty reason for Wuppertal to lavishly celebrate the city’s famous son.