The hiking and cycling path along the increasingly renatured Emscher is a true pearl in the middle of the Ruhr metropolis and the cities in the surrounding area. There is now an approximately 120 kilometer long path that mostly runs parallel to the Emscher and takes you from the source of the Emscher in Holzwickede to the mouth of the Emscher in the Rhine near Dinslaken.
What is particularly interesting is that the Emscherweg gives you an unadorned and fascinatingly varied view of the “backyards” of the Ruhr area. Via sewers, through motorway underpasses, through the middle of districts, past sewage treatment plants, residential areas, flood retention basins that look more like nature reserves than technical systems, allotment gardens typical of the Ruhr area and scenic passages, you will experience impressions of the Ruhr area that you can hardly get from anywhere else. Structural change, landscape change, urban change mix with numerous sights on the Industrial Heritage Route to create a travel route that will never cease to amaze you.
Depending on the section, you can still experience the change directly, not always to your delight. Be prepared for poor signage, no signage at all, for the numerous detours on the closed sections of the renaturation construction work that you have to somehow avoid yourself, as well as for finished sections where you believe everything has always been like this there, the sewer of the Ruhr area would never have existed.
No matter whether you want to cover the entire route from the source to the mouth of the Rhine, or just want to discover parts of the Emscherweg for local recreation - you will see the diversity of a metropolis, as well as a fascinating landscape.