Mannheim? This may surprise some, but the travel guide has good reasons for visiting next year.
One comes to Mannheim with a sorrowful eye, but one also leaves with a sorrowful eye. The saying means that the square city is often underestimated and after a while it turns out to be a livable and lovable metropolis. More of an industrial city with high unemployment, the commune is now receiving more attention. A new “Marco Polo” trend travel guide says: “2023 is the year to visit Mannheim.”
Mannheim as exotic on the “Marco Polo” travel list 2023
The trend guide from MairDumont, the largest German travel publishing group based in Ostfildern near Stuttgart, will present 40 exciting travel trends and destinations for the coming year.
“Monnem” as perhaps the most surprising destination was chosen primarily because of the Federal Horticultural Show (April 14th to October 8th, 2023). Buga may sound like “tour buses and old-school staring at flowers,” but it can mean so much more. After the Buga of 1975, Mannheim, for example, had two large parks and a telecommunications tower.
The Federal Horticultural Show expects more than two million visitors
Gregor Rummel, Head of Mannheim City Marketing, thinks that Mannheim already has a good reputation when it comes to business activities. But city travelers would not have Mannheim with at least 312,000 inhabitants in mind. But the Buga is “a blessing”: 2.1 million visits to the Buga and around 200,000 additional overnight stays are expected. So far, Americans have accounted for the most overnight stays, including Dutch people. Before Corona, Mannheim marketing counted 1.6 million overnight stays.
But the city has more to offer besides the Buga. Pubs and restaurants attract party-goers to the Jungbusch. To ensure that everything runs smoothly in the amusement district near the nationwide Pop Academy, the city was the first in Germany to appoint a night mayor. It should manage to reconcile the interests of residents, party people and law enforcement officers. If you are still looking for the right outfit for an evening stroll through the clubs, you can find what you are looking for on the main shopping mile Planken and its lively side streets.
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Museums, feminism and film: the city has more to offer
Culture lovers have the choice between several outstanding museums: “The Normans” are currently being guest at the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museums. The art gallery promotes contemporary female artists and presents quickly forgotten painters of the past, such as the feminist graphic artist Hanna Nagel. The Technoseum illuminates the history of the industrialization of the German southwest.
Cinema fans can look forward to the International Film Festival in Mannheim and Heidelberg (this year November 17th to 27th). A flying visit is the city’s landmark, the 60 meter high water tower from the 19th century.
The Mannheim National Theater, which is currently being renovated, where Schiller’s “Räuber” was first performed in 1782, offers traditional and innovative performances in four Spartan theaters. Alternative venues will be used during the renovation, for example in a theater truck or in a former US Army cinema on the conversion site.
Mannheim’s baroque palace is one of the reasons why the new “Marco Polo” book “Where is the journey going? – The best destinations for 2023” recommends Mannheim as a travel destination.
Photo: Uwe Anspach, dpa
Culture and history meet in Mannheim
The Buga core site is also located on a selected military site. The highlights here are a panoramic walkway, which provides a view of the entire Buga site and a near-natural floodplain, as well as a cable car that takes visitors to the Luisenpark with the new South America house and extended aquarium.
The Buga cultural program also includes a musical about the life of soul pioneer Joy Fleming, who died in 2017 and represented Germany in the 1975 Grand Prix (today the Eurovision Song Contest) with the catchy tune “A song can be a bridge”.
She also became famous nationwide in the 1970s with the hit “Neckarbrückenblues”, in which she set a musical monument to her hometown with the “Mannemer Neckarbrick”.
If you want to take a taste of the city home with you, you’ve come to the right place at the traditional café Herrdegen. Its founder, Carl Herrdegen, created delicacies from persipan, nuts, spices and lots of chocolate on top in 1862 – the “Mannemer Dreck”. Julia Giertzdpa/lsw
