Walking Beuel, Bonn's right bank from river to Ennert

Schwarzrheindorf and Vilich

Doppelkirche St. Maria und St. Clemens (Schwarzrheindorf) was consecrated in 1151 in the presence of King Konrad III. A lower church and an upper church sit one on top of the other, linked by an opening in the floor. The lower church is covered in 12th-century Old Testament wall paintings, and that combination of stacked plan and fresco cycle is rare anywhere in Europe.

From outside the building is squat Rhenish Romanesque sandstone, with an octagonal crossing tower and dwarf-gallery arcading around it. Entry is free and the church is open for visits outside services. It closes on Mondays, and the upper church is normally open only at weekends, so plan for a Saturday or a Sunday. Guided tours cost €5 and are bookable through the parish or through the archdiocese programme.

Stiftskirche St. Peter (Vilich) stands ten minutes by tram from the promenade, inside the enclosed churchyard of a former women's abbey. St Adelheid of Vilich, Bonn's own patron saint, was abbess here around 978 and is buried in the church; her empty stone sarcophagus sits in a small side chapel. The core is 11th century, the west tower Romanesque under a bulbous baroque hood, the walls whitewashed. Entry is free. The Adelheid festival week in early February is the busiest time of the year here, and the rest of the calendar is quiet.

The laundry village and its museum

Heimatmuseum Beuel (Wagnergasse) explains the one thing the rest of the district assumes you already know. Beuel washed the linen of well-off Bonn across the water, and its washerwomen invented the Weiberfastnacht carnival that the whole Rhineland now copies. The house on the lane is small and the rooms are low, crammed with zinc washtubs, washboards, flat irons and mangles, photographs of the laundry carts, and the sashes and bonnets of the Beuel laundresses' carnival committee.

Volunteers run it, which keeps the hours short: Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, 15:00 to 17:00. Entry is free and donations are welcome. Tours are given in standard German or in the local dialect, and children can work through a rally of their own. The museum will also open outside those hours for a booked visit.

The promenade and the Rheinaue

Beueler Rheinpromenade and Beueler Rheinaue is the reason to cross the river at all. The paved promenade runs along the right bank under the pale-blue Kennedy Bridge, planted with plane trees, with mown meadow behind it and small sandy coves down at the water. The southern Rheinaue section has barbecue spots at the edge of the river. Walking parties and picnics are normal, the bank is public and free, and you look at the old-town skyline from here instead of standing inside it. Upstream the Siebengebirge hills close the picture.

Rheinlust (Rheinaustraße) has long wooden benches under trees directly on the Beuel bank, with loaded barges sliding past at eye level and the bridge and old town opposite. It has 90 seats inside and 90 on the terrace, and takes larger parties without fuss. The food is unfussy and the prices are €€, which means you pay Beuel money for the Bonn postcard. The Sunday breakfast buffet is the local institution, and on Friday and Saturday the place serves until 03:00. The nearest tram stop is Konrad-Adenauer-Platz.

Restaurant Bahnhöfchen sits on the promenade in a small former railway station building, with a glazed veranda and an awninged terrace facing the Rhine and the hills to the south. Inside it is white linen; the cooking is German and international at €€ to €€€, and the kitchen stays open until 22:30 daily. Breakfast is à la carte on Saturdays and a buffet from 09:00 on Sundays. The reservations office handles group and event bookings on weekdays, 10:00 to 18:00. For sunset over the old town this is the best-placed table in Beuel.

The Bonner Bogen

At the Bonner Bogen the old Beuel cement works has been turned into riverfront. Rohmühle occupies the converted raw mill hall, a brick and steel industrial shell with full-height glazing and a 280-seat sun terrace stepping down to the water, the Siebengebirge silhouette opposite. It opens daily, 10:00 to 23:00, seats another 120 indoors, and has a children's playground alongside. The kitchen is solid Mediterranean-international at €€, and it runs private and corporate functions. People come for the sunset more than for the menu.

Kameha Grand Bonn is the Marcel Wanders landmark on the Rhine at the same bend, a sweeping white facade over a vast atrium, with oversized cocoon and themed suites and a rooftop pool whose edge appears to spill toward the river. It has 253 rooms, and the top floors look across at the hills. Rates are €€€, from €119 B&B on current offers. Yunico, in house, holds one Michelin star; the hotel also runs Ludwig's, the RheinAlm beer garden and the Stage Bar. Eight event spaces run from 40 to 1,330 m², for up to 2,500 people, which makes this the conference address on the right bank. The hotel has been trading through insolvency administration since early 2026. Operations and bookings are running normally, and you should confirm your reservation directly before travelling.

Kommende Ramersdorf / Residenz Kommende (Oberkasseler Straße) was founded as a Teutonic Order commandery around 1230 and now works as a 26-room hotel on the slope above the Bonner Bogen. The building is crenellated neo-Gothic, the interiors are stuffed with antiques and old oak, and the garden terrace looks over Bonn. Rooms run from €85 to €120. It rebranded from Schlosshotel Kommende Ramersdorf, so book under the Residenz Kommende name. The Italian kitchen, Ristorante I Medici, serves evenings only; call ahead. The banquet hall takes weddings, events and group bookings.

Above Oberkassel, in the Ennert

Skywalk Rabenlay is a slim steel-and-timber platform cantilevered nine metres out over the sheer basalt wall of a disused quarry above Oberkassel, with the Rhine valley and Bonn laid out below and the woodland of the Ennert behind. It went up in 2017 above the quarry where the 14,000-year-old Oberkassel double grave was found in 1914, the grave that held the world's oldest known domestic dog. It is free, unstaffed and open at any hour, and the view is the best free one on this bank. Eagle owls and falcons nest in the rock face, so stay on the platform. The deck is narrow, and a walking group takes turns at the rail.

You reach it on foot from the Oberkassel-Mitte tram stop, either by the Franz-Kissel-Weg or along the Rheinsteig.

Ennert Bräu – Brauhaus am Ennert brews at Pützchen on the forest edge, at the border of the Siebengebirge nature reserve, its 200-seat beer garden under mature trees against the dark wall of the Ennert woods. Copper kettles stand in the taproom, which pours Ennert-Bräu helles and the Beethoven-labelled range, with 120 more seats inside and prices at €€. Doors open at 17:00 on weekdays, 15:00 on Saturday and 12:00 on Sunday. No lunch is served Monday to Friday. Buffets and events can be booked, with final numbers due eight working days ahead. Walk the Rabenlay first and the afternoon has a shape.

Friedrich-Breuer-Straße

Theodor's Restaurant (Friedrich-Breuer-Straße 98) holds one star in the 2026 Michelin Guide, which puts Bonn's serious cooking on this side of the river. Siblings Jana and Fritz Benson run the room and the stoves between them, behind a discreet shopfront that opens into a compact contemporary dining room with an open kitchen. Menus are four to six seasonal courses, €105 to €150, at €€€€. The room is small, so reserve well ahead. A party has to commit to the same menu, and the kitchen keeps no walk-in capacity for a large table. It closes on Monday and Tuesday.

Pützchens Markt in September

Pützchens Markt grew out of a medieval pilgrimage to the Adelheid spring, and the little chapel and holy well still sit at the origin of the fairground. For five days the Pützchen meadows carry a Ferris wheel and tall thrill rides above rows of beer and sausage tents, shooting galleries and roasted-almond stalls. It runs from the Friday before the second Sunday in September, which in 2026 means 11 to 15 September. Entry is free, rides cost €3 to €8, and the crowd passes a million, so works outings and family groups are the norm. Monday is the after-work party and Tuesday ends with fireworks over the crowd. Outside those five days Pützchen is a quiet suburb.

Closed days and bookings

Mondays are thin on this bank: the Doppelkirche is shut, Theodor's closes Monday and Tuesday, and the Heimatmuseum opens only on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Reserve Theodor's well ahead, call the Kommende before an evening meal, and confirm a Kameha Grand reservation directly. See the Bonn guide and the Bonn hotel search.