Trip to Aachen

The day after my Hilden-Gruiten hike, tired but still just about standing, I hopped on the Regionalexpress to the nearby (70km or 1h20ish by slow train) town of Aachen, to visit an old university friend who was serendipitously in town. Aachen is a town with a long and important history, the site of famous hot springs and baths since Roman times, and perhaps more significantly, the site of the court and last resting place of Emperor Charlemagne (Charles the Great).

It was a gorgeous spring day as we first took a stroll around the city centre. After looking at (and smelling the sulphur of) the baths, and getting some sausages (important german tourism), we visited the cathedral. The interior is very beautiful, and having partly been built before the medieval period, rather different from the gothic architecture of a lot of european cathedrals. The chapel is a round, tower-like building with columns of romanesque, round-topped windows and arches and faced in luxurious marble. Far back behind a cordon you could see the coffin of the emperor himself!

We then made a bus trip out of town to the nearby point where Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium meet. This triple point is situated on top of a 300m-ish high hill, making it the highest point in all of the Netherlands. There are a series of lookout towers and other entertainment facilities (like chips and icecream!), and some nice green grass to lie on and enjoy the weather. I was still flagging from my hike, so took the opportunity to lie around on the cool grass, checking out the 3 countries monument and the tower only after a good rest.

We returned to town as the day cooled off and the sun began to go down, the perfect weather to explore the other squares and vistas of the old town. I was somewhat taken aback at how *old* some of the buildings were. I was impressed by a shopfront of wonky stone from the 14th century, only to turn around and see the town hall, featuring a tower that was already built in the 8th century... After a little more time chilling in the quiet square in front of the town hall, it was time to go home for a good rest! Hope you enjoy my small selection of pictures from the former imperial capital!

Bis bald,

Der Tom

Hilden -> Ittertal -> Gruiten hike

After a long hiking hiatus in the latter part of the winter, by the beginning of April I was itching to get outside again and look at some actual nature. I spent a while poring over my map for a route that was near Duesseldorf but led me away from the many many satellite towns and villages. The countryside here is relatively built up (though not as densely tarmacked-over as, say, suburban London), but it is criss-crossed with shallow valleys that remain as thin seams of quiet between the towns. This is probably thanks to a combination of their dampness, awkward access, and obvious natural value.

I spotted a likely candidate, the Ittertal, and connected up a few other paths through greener bits of the map until I had a route of 16km or so. The start of my route was in Hilden, and there were a couple of rather suburban kilometres before it found its way into a quieter marsh and valley section. I say quieter, but the spring woodland birdsong really was very loud indeed! I passed via the marshy lowlands over a sandy heath of windblown glacial dust (much like those found in Austria!) and then back into another valley. All the while civilisation was just visible either side of the thin strip of nature I was travelling along, but there was plenty of wildlife, and I saw some beautiful nuthatches, a stunningly pink male bulfinch and an extremely boastful show-off of a wren, who was around the entire time I was having lunch...

It was at lunchtime I reached the Ittertal proper, one of those wooded valleys with low, damp meadows and frequent mills that seem very common to this area. As with the similar Neandertal, its natural state belies the fact that it was very industrially active in the 19th century. The mills in the Ittertal were used to produce sharp razor blades from the copious steel made in nearby factories, until the trade volume became too much for the inefficient little roads leading into and out of the valleys. Nowadays each mill is a smart black and white half timbered building with the obligatory green shutters and with flowers everywhere, looking like the valley had always been a peaceful nature reserve.

The route took me by some more modern additions to the valley like a water park and water treatment centre, definite indicators of the large population of this area, and then up a quiet tributary where the birdsong resumed in earnest. This didn't last long however as emerging from the idyllic valley (that could easily have been in the Wienerwald) it was back to crossing big roads and suburbia. The final part of the route took me across some sweeping industrial-size farm fields under the shadows of power lines, before I ended up at the station in Gruiten for my train home. All in all a great walk for the variety and abundance of wildlife I spotted, but interspersed with a lot of reminders of the busy nature of this urban area!

Hope you enjoy my gallery of a few of the natural delights to be found hiding between the villages and towns around Duesseldorf!

bis bald,

der Tom

Duesseldorf City Centre (and Wuppertal pictures)

 

As I think I mentioned before, I currently live in Duesseldorf. However, I really don't get into the centre of town much. However, the centre of Duesseldorf is very nice indeed! There's a lot of lovely old architecture in the very centre, but the best thing is the way it mixes with all the newer stuff into a varied landscape. There's a lot to discover wandering around, if you know where to look, and those discoveries make it a great place for an aimless walk. Obviously Vienna is more classically beautiful, but something that even the Viennese have to admit is that the 1st district is very architecturally monotonous in aggregate. Even if every house has a *different* crazy menagerie of over the top plaster gods and beasts, it's still all over the top mengeries, y'know?

Probably my favourite building is the Stahlhof, built in 1909. This monumental red sandstone building was basically built by the steel barons of Duesseldorf as a statement of their immense prestige and wealth. It's an incredible building and a big contrast with architecture from the 19th century. There's huge chiselled robot-like faces, steel workers holding each other up, massive sandstone cogs and chain motifs, odd diversions into egyptian and greek imagery, and many many sandstone reliefs of elements of the steelworkers trade.

My other favourite part of the centre of Duesseldorf has to be the parks, which, though small, are wonderfully woven in between all the other buildings. They are also full of parrots (OK, parakeets), which are my OTHER other favourite thing about Duesseldorf and really liven the place up! Nothing like standing next to the famous Art Academy of Duesseldorf, steeped in 19th century grandeur and with a very illustrious list of alumni, as a flight of screaming green parakeets goes overhead. 
Of course there is also the Rhine, with the narrow streets giving way to the huge open bend of the river, barges constantly passing in both directions and the TV tower lighting up on the horizon!

I have explored a lot of the centre by now, thanks to my numerous visitors here, but most of the time I have been exploring and not photographing... However, one cold and slightly snowy day in February, with the sun just occasionally peeking through the sky, I remembered to bring my camera as I took my friend Steve on the rounds of the city. Having eaten our fill at one of the amazing Japanese restaurants here (Duesseldorf has about 1% Japanese inhabitants!) we then hopped on the train to explore Wuppertal, the nearby city with a fantastic suspended railway system which is a must see if you are excited by hanging, swinging trains over rivers...

So anyway, hope you enjoy this small set of photos from our snowy day out! Click ze link for more...

as always, bis bald,

der Tom

Palmenhaus Schoenbrunn

Plants often get overlooked in favour of animals, and indeed, I have definitely been guilty of this in the past. But perhaps helped by spending two weeks in the mountains with multiple botanists, or perhaps just because of the slightly greater patience that comes with age, I'm definitely starting to appreciate the incredible world of plants more than I used to. The best thing about plants is that a lot of them are just so absolutely alien-seeming, even some that are relatively common. Others are just beautiful, and of course there are the beautiful alien plants too. And then there are those that are just a bit scary...

The Palmenhaus is situated in the grounds of the Schoenbrunn Palace in Vienna. It is an absolutely gorgeous building, a large greenhouse complex whose wrought iron bulk looks both elegant and strange situated within the manicured gardens off to one side of the Palace itself. Until recently I had never visited it, because I was always at Schoenbrunn for some other reason, and there never seemed to be the time.

This winter though, on one of my many brief trips back to Vienna, I finally got to check it out. Inside is even more impressive than outside, the high ceilings and complex detail of the ironwork combine with towering palm trees and strange, spiky undergrowth to create a mysterious atmosphere that would almost be cathedral-like if it weren't for the recorded tropical birdsong and the warm humid air. In the main part, big iron spiral staircases decked in vegetation rise upwards. Here and there throughout are inviting white-painted iron chairs and benches, and it certainly seems that some people get a season ticket and a book and use this place as a way to escape the harsh realities of winter!

The Palmenhaus is divided into three parts, cool, warm, and hot. Big tip for winter visitors, DON'T start cool and work up, you'll feel it when you leave :-) Regardless, though there are weird and wonderful plants in all three sections, the hottest is probably the highlight. The vegetation is very dense and the air very humid, the yellow light from the lamps reflecting everywhere off dark green, rubbery leaves and big spreading palm fronds. It is here that some of the best aliens, monsters and beauties can be found, chief amongst them the orchids, several of which found their way among the photos I am showcasing here.

In addition to the Palmenhaus the neighbouring Wuestenhaus (desert house) is absolutely worth a visit, with unbelievable cacti, tortoises, and a whole menagerie of different bird species and even a whole naked mole rat colony with tranparent pipes! Sadly I don't have pictures of that so you will just have to go yourself. However, my pictures of one afternoon's journey to the jungle can be perused by following the appropriately greenish link.

Bis bald,

der Tom.


PS there was a special Poinsettia exhibition on when these photos were taken, so good times for all you Poinsettia fans!

 

Boxing Day +1 again

At Christmas time lots of people come home, so it's a perfect time to meet up with old friends. But there are a lot of different places everyone has to be at once... Our solution this past few years has been to have a standing date, the 27th of December (or more catchily, 'Boxing Day +1'). On this day, we always plan (maybe plan is too strong a word) to have a hike combined with a pub visit, where all of us local friends can meet up while doing what we like to do best.

  This year was no different. Seeing as it was a pretty last-minute arrangement, we opted to do a walk we had done on two previous occasions. The day started out cold, and there was frost on the ground as I walked down from the village to meet my fellow hikers. But the sky was almost completely clear, and the bright sun was quickly melting the frost and led to a pretty pleasant walking temperature. Still, the ground stayed cold enough and the weather had been dry enough that we didn't have to contend with too much of the thick slippery mud that can often be an issue in the good old Chiltern hills.

The landscape of the Chilterns is very familiar to all of us former (and some still current) scouts, but it is still always nice to be reminded of the beauty that lurks behind the hedges we all too often find ourselves behind, speeding along in our cars from one urban centre to the next. Up on the hilltops the views open out over the broad chalk valleys, and towards the northwest where the chalk runs out, Aylesbury Vale can be spotted low in the distance.

 We stopped at the pub, stocking up on proper British food and ale, for me an unusual luxury, for others an everyday occurrence. As usual running just a tiny bit behind schedule, we piled out of the pub and made a slightly fuller, more stately beeline for home. As the day went on, clouds started to form out over the plain, but up on the high ground visibility remained good, although the clouds did close in and cause us to pick up our step as the early winter dark crept in.

All in all a great day, unremarkable in that it happens every year but also remarkable for that very same reason! And some great weather too, which should never be sniffed at, though I feel that we have had generally good luck for most of the last few years. My extended set of photos from the hike is accessible at this link. Here's to more hikes in 2017!

Bis bald,

der Tom

Exploring the eastern edge of Düsseldorf

At the start of November the weather was clear and sunny and Autumn was still brightening up the countryside, the perfect time for my second Düsseldorf hike! This time I picked a hike starting from within the city itself, sticking quite close to its edges but nonetheless taking in some proper countryside. I love the feeling of walking out of a place on foot and arriving in somewhere that feels completely different, sometimes within a few minutes.

After a 10 minute S-Bahn journey I reached my start point in Gerresheim, now an outer district of Düsseldorf, though once its own town/village. The station is located next to the rather desolate-looking building site where a huge old glassworks is being torn down. But after 5 minutes of walking along a main road I turned off east and was immediately looking over fields, with the bright (if low) late autumn sun highlighting the golden clumps of trees on the high ground across the valley. I took so many photos in the first hour of my walk, slightly drunk on all that nature (well, very cultivated, but still alive) after a while away.

I wound on, passing forest, then railway, then horses, then a skate park, then an old castle, a patchwork of town and country where Düsseldorf peters out. Eventually I reached the Rotthaeuser Bachtal, a valley just over the hill from Düsseldorf but already a different world, winding along through yellow-orange beech forests, passing serene fishing ponds, old farmhouses, cows and fields. There was also a lot of mud, but I'm well used to that. As I may have said before, walking near Düsseldorf is much more like Buckinghamshire than Austria was, and I know deep black muddy woodland paths well from my youth as a scout.

My route finally led me over a blustery, scrubby hill and back into town proper, passing a petrol station and some houses before turning outwards again, threading past a golf course and over an area used as a glider launching site. The clouds had rolled in by this time and the wind turned cold and biting as I walked over the featureless grass, with the windsock on the horizon. Eventually I found myself back in autumnal forest, albeit on paved roads. This was the park-like Stadtwald (or Aaper Wald), full of families, joggers and dog walkers enjoying a slightly less muddy dose of the almost-natural.

I got a bit lost looking for a geological site of interest marked on my map. Although I was led to expect a dramatic boulder, I eventually found a small, mossy and overgrown pile of damp rocks, little bigger than a meter across. Lucky I'm a geologist, otherwise I would have been disappointed! As it started to rain as forecast, I walked briskly downhill, luckily discovering a tram stop practically inside the woods, leading directly back to my flat!

As always, my favourite pictures are uploaded and can be found by clicking on these words that I am writing here.

Happy new year and bis bald!

Der Tom

Along the river Düssel

I've moved a long way from the alps, but even in the more populated areas of Germany, you're never too far away from some countryside. After spending some time adjusting to my new work schedule and hurrying around Europe to multiple conferences I finally had a weekend free in Duesseldorf where I actually felt like doing something other than my laundry. Luckily I had picked up some maps in the weeks before and with the help of this extremely useful Nordrhein-Westfalen hiking website, I had everything I needed for my first trip.

Considering my lack of condition I picked a pretty long route, 18km, hoping that the lack of major hills would make up for the extra distance. Disembarking from the S-Bahn stop Wulfrath-Aprath after a pleasingly short journey, I was initially unimpressed at the scenery, but after only a few minutes the path turned away from the main road and everything became much quieter. Passing by a large village pond I quickly came out onto a low hill surrounded by farmland, giving me a good view of the landscape, which was low but rolling, featuring scattered woods, broad fields, and the occasional intrusion of modernity like church spires, cranes, high rise flats, and distant spoil heaps. Minus the spoil heaps it was not all that different from Britain, though still with different architecture and a notable lack of cows, sheep and hedgerows.

For the rest of the morning I hiked across varied terrain, crossing fields, through woods, and alongside rivers, every so often popping back into civilisation and crossing villages and towns. Many of the buildings I passed, both isolated farms and in the centres of villages, were all of the same old half timber design, painted a uniform black and white with green shutters and grey-green slates on their sides. Many proved to be extremely old, with dates going back to the 17th century! There was also a surprise 'castle' that had obviously housed a wealthy resident or two in the past.

After eating lunch in a small churchyard I began the second leg of my walk, from this point on almost exclusively shadowing the tiny river Duessel. Most of the time I was walking through trees slightly apart from the river itself, with small marshy riverside meadows and fields separating me from the water. On this leg mills became more common, and after crossing the fantastically picturesque and well-kept old centre of the village of Gruiten I entered the famous Neandertal. Here things were a bit more enclosed, with steeper limestone cliffsides often limiting the view out of the valley. The path is almost a road at points. It crisscrossed the river in broad curves, and the riverside meadows became yellower and more beautiful as the autumn sun sank lower in the sky.

Tired now after many kilometres of walking, I arrived in the more densely wooded and well-frequented part of the Neandertal, near the Neanderthal museum. Here some last surprises awaited me, first some 'wild' horses bred in the 20s to resemble their ice-age forebears, and then a small sculpture trail including a fantastic hidden Anthony Gormley sculpture lying peacefully and almost invisible at the bottom of the Duessel.

All in all a great first hike, and I took a bunch of pictures to prove it!

Bis bald,

Der Tom