FKK Freude 39 Bochum [RTC] (D)

Bochum

Name origin

boc-hem, boeken, bokum (alt. = Buchenhain)

First documented mention

890 AD

Population

365,000

Area

145.66 km²

Federal state

Nordrhein-Westfalen

Administrative region

Arnsberg

District

/

Vehicle registration

BO, WAT

River

Ruhr

The club FKK Freude 39 is located in Bochum-Hamme.

"Bochum, ich komm' aus dir, Bochum, ich häng`an dir. Glück auf!" is how Herbert Grönemeyer puts it. Which is a bit of a fib, since the popular singer was actually born in Göttingen, but that hasn't stopped him from dedicating a love hymn to his supposed hometown. Deutsche Bahn seems to lack such heartfelt affection, since - unlike the other three Ruhr metropolises Duisburg, Essen and Dortmund - not all long-distance trains stop at Bochum's main station by any means.

Whoever still manages to get off in Bochum is offered the Ruhr region in its purest form. A must-see is the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum on the northern edge of the city centre ring road. In the city you'll find, besides a bustling shopping mile, the Bermuda-Dreieck, Bochum's well-known entertainment and strolling quarter, where food stalls, pubs, bistros & cinemas line up one after another and half of Bochum seems to be out having fun on nice summer evenings. The Bermuda-Dreieck stretches along an imaginary northern extension axis up to the red-light district Im Winkel, known as "Eierberg"; between these places, on Rottstraße, Germany's last remaining peep show, the Miami Show-Center, could be found until 2014.

There's certainly more to see in Bochum: opposite the Tierpark and Fossilium is the theatre of Starlight Express, the musical that has run longest at a single location worldwide. Shaping another theatre, the Bochumer Schauspielhaus, located a little south of the Bermuda-Dreieck, was Tana Schanzara, who came from a family of opera singers and was dubbed the "Ruhrpott-Duse" from the 1950s onwards. She was born in Kiel and grew up in neighbouring Dortmund after her parents got an engagement there at the opera house. With her song "Vatter, aufstehen!!" she vividly described to German radio listeners at the time what "marital bliss" looks like in the Ruhrpott. Tana Schanzara remained loyal to the Bochum theatre for more than 50 years. In her honour, the square by the Schauspielhaus was renamed "Tana-Schanzara-Platz" and a monument was erected there for her.

An absolute highlight is also the Planetarium, not to be confused with the equally worthwhile Bochumer Sternwarte. Anyone who's absolutely set on having fun and has enough spare cash can also start a shopping tour at the Ruhr-Park, one of the largest shopping centres in Germany, right on the A40 between Bochum and Dortmund.

Alongside Essen-Duisburg and Dortmund, Bochum is one of the university towns along the A40 route straight through the Ruhr region. The university lies in the south of the city in the district of Querenburg. It's also worth it for non-academics to venture out in this direction as far as Burg Blankenstein and the Kemnader See. Here, far from the noise of the city centre, you inevitably get to know a different, quiet and nature-close Bochum, which descends into the Ruhr valley in a gentle, lush green hilly landscape and invites you to hike and dream.

Well-known sons and daughters of Bochum include Peter Scholl-Latour, Otto Schily, Manfred Eigen, Hans Korte, Norbert Lammert, Ingo Naujoks, Thomas Hermanns, Kathy Krause, Britta Steilmann and Bastian Pastewka.