From Imperial Cathedral to Space Shuttle - The Technical Museum Speyer

Day two of museum week, and the first glance at the grounds tells you everything you need to know about Speyer: 11th-century imperial cathedral, heritage-protected industrial hall from 1913, Lufthansa jumbo on stilts, a fighter jet on the open-air grounds - all in one image frame. The museum doesn’t even try to fit into the city. It just stands there and does its thing.

And that thing is pretty big.

Getting There

Just under half an hour from Sinsheim to Speyer via the A6 and A61 - not far, but in terms of content, a different museum. If you have Sinsheim in mind as a “sister” museum, you’ll be surprised: Speyer is not a continuation, but the other half of the same idea. Less detailed showcases, more large exhibits. Less “rabbit hole in detail,” more “walk-through giants.”

Liller Hall - Where the Tour Begins

The Liller Hall is where it all starts - and the building itself is already an exhibit. Built in 1913, heritage-protected, with the typical saw-tooth roof construction you see in old industrial buildings. The hall was originally constructed in Lesquin, France, and later transported stone by stone to Speyer. Today it houses a mix that reads like a cross-section of technological history: locomotives, vintage cars, fire engines, mechanical organs.

Out to the Open-Air Grounds - Where Dimensions Explode

The transition from the cabinet of curiosities in the Liller Hall to the outdoors is a hard cut. Suddenly it’s not locomotives anymore, but aircraft in a size that photos never quite capture.

On the way across the grounds, you pass the Kelly Family houseboat - the “Sean O’Kelley,” where the band lived for years. A nice oddity that you pick up in passing.

Boeing 747

The Lufthansa Boeing 747-200 “Schleswig-Holstein” is what most people associate with Speyer - and for good reason. It towers on stilts over the grounds, visible from far away, accessible from inside.

This composition - thousand-year-old imperial cathedral in the background, modern wide-body jet beneath your feet - is one of those moments you know you won’t forget anytime soon.

Antonov An-22 - The Flying Warehouse

If the 747 is already big, then the Antonov An-22 “Antei” is absurd. The world’s largest series-produced propeller aircraft, four double propellers with counter-rotating screws, and a cargo bay where you can easily imagine tanks rolling in. And it’s accessible too.

Inside, the impression only gets stronger. You stand in a cave made of aluminum and struts and realize this is no passenger aircraft interior anymore, but pure function: cargo in, cargo out, everything else is secondary. With the An-22, you understand without further explanation why the Soviet Union built something like this.

U9 - A Different Generation

With the submarine U9, the first reaction was the same as with the U-17 in Sinsheim: the same cramped conditions. If you’ve been in a submarine before, you know the feeling - no privacy, no escape, everything packed into the tightest possible space. And then you think about how 22 people worked here, and it gets even tighter.

But the difference from the U-17 is clearly noticeable. The U9 is a different generation, a different class - Class 205, built in the 1960s, commissioned in 1967. The control elements seem more mechanical, less electronic, the boat overall just older. That’s not a value judgment, just a historical document from an earlier phase of German submarine development. If you visit both boats one after the other, you get an unintended but educational cross-section of two decades of naval technology.

Apollo and Beyond - Europe’s Largest Space Exhibition

Back in the hall, and it changes character completely again: Apollo and Beyond, Europe’s largest space exhibition. Soyuz capsules, original spacesuits, module replicas of the ISS and MIR. Anyone interested in space exploration can easily spend an hour here without getting bored.

The exhibition has something of a textbook of human spaceflight - chronological, dense, and with real artifacts instead of just models. Soyuz landing capsules in which cosmonauts actually returned to Earth. Spacesuits that were worn. This gives the exhibition a depth that pleasantly sets it apart from the colorful Disney aesthetic of some space museums.

Red Bull Stratos - A Piece of Austria in Speyer

In the space exploration hall, there’s a section that has a special note for Austrian visitors: Red Bull Stratos. On October 14, 2012, Felix Baumgartner rose in a helium balloon to 38,969 meters altitude - to the edge of space - and let himself fall back toward Earth. In free fall, he became the first human without aircraft to break the sound barrier, reaching over 1,300 km/h. The whole thing was a global media event at the time, which I - like many others - followed live.

In the museum stand two central exhibits: the original pressure suit from the first test flight, identical in design to the suit worn during the final jump, and the original Airstream trailer that served as Baumgartner’s retreat before and after the jump. The trailer was specially brought from the USA to Speyer after the mission - an inconspicuous exhibit at first glance, but this trailer was the place where the jumper prepared himself mentally and physically for the jump over weeks. The capsule itself, with which he ascended, is not in Speyer.

Felix Baumgartner has since passed away, which gives the area a different note today. What was a triumphal arch at the opening of the exhibition - an Austrian who made history - is now also a piece of memory for an exceptional athlete who is no longer here. The exhibits tell his story.

Buran - The Actual Reason You’re Here

And then there it is: OK-GLI, the only Buran freely accessible outside Russia. Aerodynamic prototype of the Soviet Space Shuttle program, built for atmospheric test flights. In 2008, a spectacular transport from Bahrain via sea to Rotterdam, then on a pontoon up the Rhine to Speyer.

What photos don’t really capture: the size. I expected the Buran to be smaller - in reality it’s noticeably more massive than I thought.

A staircase leads into the open cargo bay - and that’s the moment when it really becomes tangible. You stand in the cargo hold of a space shuttle, look forward through the tunnel toward the cockpit, and try to grasp that this thing was actually meant for an orbit. The fact that the Buran program was discontinued after a single unmanned flight in 1988 gives the entire machine something melancholic. An impressive technical project that had no future politically and economically.

In the same hall, by the way, there are also special exhibitions that don’t necessarily fit thematically with space exploration - currently “Legends on Wheels” featuring Mercedes utility vehicles with a focus on the Unimog (extended until November 2026), plus a motorcycle exhibition. I walked through, took a few photos, moved on to the Buran. But if you like trucks or motorcycles, you’ll find an additional whole dimension here.

IMAX DOME - Innovation Meets Expectation

The IMAX DOME is the second major difference from Sinsheim. Instead of a 3D screen, there’s a 1,000 m² dome that extends the image across your entire visual field. On the program: the 2019 Apollo 11 documentary, completely restored from original material.

The format is impressive. When the Saturn V ignites on the dome, you actually briefly feel like you’re standing at the launch pad. Nevertheless - and I don’t say this lightly - I found the U-17 transport documentary in Sinsheim ultimately more emotionally compelling. The Apollo 11 documentary is technically and historically outstanding, but it remains distant. The Sinsheim documentary features interviews with former crew members, museum staff, volunteers - and that’s exactly what makes the difference. One documentary shows a historical event, the other shows people.

Both worth seeing. But if you have a choice: Sinsheim’s IMAX touches me more.

Practical Information

As with Sinsheim: Plan time for this. The official recommendation is three to four hours, realistically six to eight hours for those interested in technology. If you combine Sinsheim and Speyer, you should spread it over two days - and there’s a 2-day combo ticket for exactly that, covering both museums. The days don’t have to be consecutive.

Address	Am Technik Museum 1, 67346 Speyer
Hours	Daily 9-18, Sat/Sun/Holidays 9-19
Admission	Current prices on the website
Special Exhibition	”Legends on Wheels” (extended until November 8, 2026)
Website	speyer.technik-museum.de

Conclusion

Speyer in one day is doable, but tight. Three worlds in one museum: space (Buran), water (U9), air (747 and An-22) - and each with an exhibit you won’t find elsewhere. You might experience a Boeing 747 in other places, but that wing moment with a cathedral view only happens here. The Buran is simply unique outside Russia.

The step counter at the end: just over 15,000. Again. That seems to be the standard Speyer-Sinsheim distance.

Day three of the week brings a change of pace: less static, more movement. Instead of strolling through halls, it’s off to one of Germany’s most famous racing circuits.