Things to do in Groningen

Landmark · Binnenstad

The main square, the 97-metre tower locals call d'Olle Grieze, and the stepped 2019 Forum building that rebuilt the square's east side.

Local tip: Climb the Martinitoren for the view and then go up the Forum's free roof terrace for the better one — the tower is in it. The Forum holds the library, two cinemas and a comics museum, and it is the city's living room in February.

Nature · Just north-west of the centre

A nineteenth-century park laid out on the old city bastions, and the single most used piece of public space in Groningen.

Local tip: It becomes Noorderzon for eleven days each August, and for the rest of the year it is where the entire city barbecues at the first hint of sun. The bastion outlines are still visible in the layout if you look at the paths rather than the grass.

Culture · In the canal, opposite the station

A 1994 Alessandro Mendini building sitting on an island in the Verbindingskanaal — deliberately clashing pavilions by Starck, Coop Himmelb(l)au and Mendini himself.

Local tip: The building divides the city and that is the point. The permanent collection includes the Groningen constructivists and a serious ceramics holding; the temporary shows are ambitious for a city this size. Cross via the pedestrian bridge from the station rather than walking round.

Neighborhood · North-west

The university and Hanze campus with the spin-out belt around it, and the Reitdiep waterway running north into open country beside it.

Local tip: The cycle route from the centre to Zernike is a straight ten minutes on a dedicated path and it is the best demonstration of what the 1977 traffic plan actually bought. Keep going north-west along the Reitdiep and you are in polder within twenty minutes.

Food · Binnenstad, west end

A leaning fifteenth-century church tower over the old fish market, which still holds the city's produce market three days a week.

Local tip: Tuesday, Friday and Saturday are the big market days on the Vismarkt and the Grote Markt, and they are noticeably cheaper than the supermarkets. The eierbal from any of the surrounding snackbars is a northern institution you should try exactly once and then decide about.

Nature · North-east of the city, in the former gemeente Ten Boer

Flat clay farmland, medieval wierde mound villages and a landscape that has been the front line of the gas debate for a decade.

Local tip: Cycle out through Garmerwolde to the twelfth-century church at Ten Boer and look at the steel bracing on the older buildings — this is the most legible place to understand what the extraction actually did. The villages are beautiful and the politics is unavoidable; ask, listen, and do not be glib about it.