Tourism & history in Düsseldorf and surroundings

Towards the end of May my parents made their first ever trip to Germany to visit me here in Düsseldorf. It was rather hot for these parts, but perhaps that is still better than constant rain! I'm not so sure, but then again, I live here all the time so I don't have to try and see everything at once in the rain...

It was a great opportunity to go and see attractions I might otherwise be too lazy to see, and some things I wouldn't even have thought to find out existed. One of the first places we visited was the village of Kaiserswerth, just North of Düsseldorf along the Rhine. This was the site of a large imperial palace/castle begun around 900 years ago on the orders of the Emperor Barbarossa, who also decreed that Kaiserswerth be a place where tolls were paid to pass along the river. For over 600 years this quiet seeming village was the point where taxes were taken from river traffic, and it was the site of a number of battles and seiges, culminating in the destruction of the castle and much of the town in the 18th century in wars with the french. It was a fascinating place, with so many old buildings with architecture very different from other places I have seen in Germany and much more like Holland. And the best thing of all, the ruined castle was entrely built out of thick polygonal basalt columns (think the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland), heaven for the geology-loving castle fan.

Another palace was also on the menu, Schloss Benrath, in the South of the city. The heat was really burning down, preventing a long and leisurely stroll in the gardens, but we were still able to appreciate them and the sweeping vistas surrounding the palace while paying a visit to the museum of gardening there and desperately seeking cool refreshments.

We also took several strolls around the city centre, taking in the excellent art galleries and magnificent architecture and comparing and contrasting it to that of the Austro-Hungarian empire experienced on previous trips. Away from the elegant and bustling Königsallee, the city on a bank holiday afternoon was a hive of occasionally rowdy, though not intimidating, activity, with plenty of stag and hen parties weaving their way through the streets. The feel was much more similar to the UK, lacking the simultaneous tourist crowds and refined-looking coffee houses of the first district of Vienna and seeming altogether more lived-in (though in reality, the first district has its inhabitants too). Of course we enjoyed the parks and I was able to locate my favourite inhabitants of the city centre, the ring necked parakeets, who were in full voice and poking their heads curiously out of their nests in tree holes. A worthy supporting role in the entertainments was played by the many ducks and geese competing for bread at the lakeshore beneath the parakeet-filled treetops.

On the Monday, traditionally the day of rest for galleries, we went for a walk along the leafy Neanderthal, blissfully shaded for the most part, though extremely hot in places, especially when we left the comfort of the trees to explore the beautiful old tile and half-timber buildings of historic Gruiten at the end of our walk.

Hopefully you enjoy these assorted snapshots from the weekend! Chosen not for their accurate representation of all that we did, merely for their presumed aesthetic value.

bis bald,

der Tom

Velbert-Nierenhof to Nordrath - early summer in NRW

Let's flash back to May, the end of the spring, or the start of the summer. Which one you choose probably depends on the weather as you step outside... Despite the relative flatness of the Düsseldorf area, I knew that my summer would feature a two week trip to the Alps for both teaching and recreatonal hiking. Given this, I thought it would be a good idea to do a small amount of training, however token.

I ended up finding a stretch of the Neanderlandsteig between Velbert-Nierenhof station and Nordrath that consisted of a gentle and continuous upwards climb from start to finish, gaining about 300m and ending with good views from the high ground north of Wuppertal. I started the hike on a glorious spring/summer day, with the temperature hovering around that just-right level it never manages at any other time of year. The sun was shining brightly but it was still just low enough in the sky to add some dramatic backlighting to the newly green leaves of the trees. I headed on slowly up and up on a constant gradient, surrounded by sparse beech forest, sandwiched between the brown leaves and the green canopy overhead.

The birds were singing loud and clear, and I spotted several interesting ones on my journey. After tracking down a blackcap singing in a dense bit of undergrowth over a stream, I entered the most beautiful part of the walk, an area of denser forest along the small stream, nestled in the fold between two hills. The mud around the stream was rich and dark, offering the perfect contrast to the glowing green of the backlit ferns standing in the babbling water.

Moving on after my lunch, things briefly became more exposed, offering wide views over glaring yellow swathes of oildseed rape set in acres of freshly ploughed fields, and then occasional fields of long, swaying grass, looking almost abstract if you zoomed in close. As the afternoon drew on, the sun continued to shine. By the time I reached my goal, the Kahlenberg (identical in name to the hill above Vienna), I had climbed enough to get a good view over the surrounding rolling landscape, passing as I did so many fields of livestock, orchards and people on large machines engaged in making hay. I very much enjoyed this hike in what felt like a somewhat quieter, more rural context! I hope you enjoy the photos, accessible by clicking this, same as always.

bis bald,

der Tom