Germany
Bahnhof Wuppertal-Elberfeld

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  • Day 57

    An Elephant named Tuffi

    May 22, 2023 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    We had one last stop before reaching our final stay in Amsterdam.
    Originally we had randomly picked a small but nice sounding town named Limburg an der Lahn. It looked like it had some nice scenery & a beautiful cathedral.

    Then I remembered a spectacular train I had read about….
    The oldest electric elevated railway with hanging cars in the world - the Wuppertal Schwebebahn - and it would dovetail in with our return beautifully 😎

    So…one hotel cancelled and another booked.
    As we arrived into the city, we could see the spiders legs of the suspension engineering. Like something out of an early science fiction film!

    The train design was originally offered to Berlin, Munich and Breslau (now Wrocław) who all turned it down.
    Built between 1897 and 1903, with Kaiser Wilhelm having a ride in the first section before it opened in 1901, the train mostly travels 12m above the River Wupper after which the town is named.
    It is an astonishing feat of engineering, and still carries around 80,000 people every single day. The entire line takes under 30 minutes to travel, including the 20 station stops.

    Buying the ticket was an infuriating challenge… stabbing the UK flag on the machine only changed a few of the words: you need the 24-StundenTicket to be able to travel for 24 hours: about €11 for two 👍

    There have been a couple of notable incidents on the train.

    On 21st July 1950, a circus were doing a publicity stunt with a baby elephant. The creature got spooked by the swaying and broke through the carriage to crash 12m into the river below 😱
    Fortunately the elephant, two journalists, and one passenger sustained only minor injuries. I have no idea how the poor thing survived: the river today does not look deep.
    After that jump, the elephant got the name Tuffi, meaning 'waterdive' in Italian…and lived for another 40 years 👍

    The line suffered it’s first and only fatal incident on 12th April 1999. Some engineering workers left a temporary metal claw on the track, which caused the train to derail, falling 10m to the river below, killing 5 and injuring many others 😔

    The trains were replaced in 2019, although frankly we felt the blue colour rather clashed with the old green supports: orange would have worked better!
    We spent a happy couple of hours riding the beauty, hopping off a few times, snapping away….an older German lady pointed out that there is a Tuffi sculpture between two stations in the river, so we had to head back to catch that. Another older gentleman enthusiastically told us something in German: when we shook our heads and explained we were English, he resolutely continued to point and speak German. No idea what he was talking about 🤣
    At the end of the line; the trains do a very tight U-turn to head back. Fascinating to watch!

    I think even Christine secretly turned into a little bit of a train buff on this 😉

    After all that excitement, the town itself is extraordinarily uninspiring. When we checked in, the young man almost seemed a bit surprised we were there for pleasure and not business….but did reach for his drawer to share a foldaway map of the line for us.

    Primark does have a quite spectacular building just outside the main station, and Bauer have some huge factory buildings along the eastern side of the line…..but otherwise, the main centre was bereft of much more than a couple of quirky statues…the one of the man, Zuckerfritz, resting by his barrow after a hard days work is a nice reminder that not all monuments need to be of famous personalities!

    Dinner was a too large but healthy looking poke bowl served up by a bored looking young man at MALOA. His shirt told us “don’t worry, you can add avocado later”, which was laden heavy with irony: as he was making mine, he ask if I would like anything in place of the avocado, which had run out 🤣
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  • Day 1

    Engels' House

    June 4, 2015 in Germany ⋅ 🌙 18 °C

    The thing that most surprised me about Karl Marx's home town was that it was his home town. When I visited Trier a few years ago, I couldn't believe how such a place could have bred such a mind. Trier -- surrounded as it is by vineyards and think, pine forest -- seemed to me to be an unlikely birth place of the most influential man of the past 1000 years. The only person disturbing the peace was a Jehovah's Witness handing out leaflets on a bridge over the Moselle. Everyone else was calm and peaceful, going about their lives in the little German town just nine miles form the Luxembourg border.

    Visiting Wuppertal today, though, I can quite easily see how it was the home of Engels. It was Manchester that politicised Engels, but there is evidence in Wuppertal of why a man growing up there would be sympathetic to the interests of the working man. Because by the middle of the 19th century, Wuppertal was home to a thriving textile industry. Today, there are still many little brick chimneys poking up from between the opulent houses that the cotton helped to pay for.

    In the square in front of the house, is a statue of Engels, with text engraved in both German and Chinese - for it was a gift from the Chinese government. At the side of the house is a large memorial to Manchester. Truly, the influence of Engels has spread across the entire globe. Yet he is very rarely given his due. But, together with Marx, the pair of them are without a doubt the most influential philosophers of all time. How relevant, then, that it was them wrote the following:

    "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it"
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  • Day 1

    Wuppertaler Schwebebahn

    June 4, 2015 in Germany ⋅ 🌙 18 °C

    The Wuppertaler Schwebebahn, have you ever seen anything like it? Built in 1898 and opened in 1901, I think it's testament to how ingenuous and inventive the world was at the turn of the last century.

    The line, for most of its duration, straddles the river Wupper, weaving along and between the city. It's quite a ride; although not if you don't like heights. The whole thing wobbles from side to side quite a bit, so you really do have to have the disposition for it. Still, isn't it something though? So completely unique!
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  • Day 1

    Wuppertal

    June 4, 2015 in Germany ⋅ 🌙 18 °C

    Thursday was a bank holiday in Germany, so I took a train to meet a friend in Wuppertal. By train, from Düsseldorf Bilk, it took 36 minutes to get there - so no time at all. And that includes transferring train at Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof, and stopping a hundred million times at little stations between Düsseldorf and Wuppertal.

    So I get off the train at Wuppertal Hauptbahnhof, and breath in a deep breath of clean air. For Wuppertal is a city completely surrounded by dense woodland. It is a large city; long and thin, it is spread out on either bank of the river Wupper. Because of the river, and because of the hills and woodland, Wuppertal doesn't have much of a city feel.

    The pace of life is quite slow, but that perhaps has something to do with it being a bank holiday and the temperature stifling. Most of the population of Wuppertal seemed to be sat in the park eating ice cream, and I was happy to join them in doing so.

    It has all the charms of Heidelberg, but doesn't have the fronzen-in-time downsides. It's a real, working city and I like it.

    P.S. The Schwebebahn is incredibly unique, and is utterly central to the city - everything seems to revolve about it. For that reason, it warrants a blog entry of its own, and so has got one.
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  • Day 1

    Wuppertal

    February 20, 2017 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 8 °C

    NEUSEELAND
    3 Tage Flug. Why Not um ans Ende der Welt zu kommen nimmt man so einiges auf sich. Der Flug sollte um 12:50 losgehen am Montag den 20.02.2017. Ich saß pünktlich um 7:30 Uhr neben meiner Mum im Auto und war nicht mal aufgeregt. So richtig realisieren konnte ich es einfach nicht. Für 4 Monate nach Neuseeland ? Ganz alleine? Nee, dass wollte nicht in meinen Kopf! Die 2 stündige Fahrt ging dann aber doch viel zu schnell vorbei! Um ca 10 war ich dann am Flughafen. Eingecheckt und Koffer abgegeben. Langsam wurde es mir dann doch mulmig zu mute. Meine Mum wollte noch einen Cappuccino mit mir trinken gehen, aber nach 2 schlucken konnte ich einfach nichts mehr trinken. In meinem Bauch flatterte es vor Aufregung und Kaffee war kein gutes Gegenmittel. Mit wibbelnden Beinen saß ich auf meinem Stuhl und probierte mich irgendwie abzulenken. „Ich glaube wir sollten mal gehen.“ Sagte meine Mum auf einmal mit einem kurzen Blick auf die Uhr. Nein! Dachte ich mir, ich wollte noch nicht gehen. „Kommst du noch mit?“ Hoffnungsvoll lächelte ich sie an, doch da war sie schon aufgestanden und hatte meinen Rucksack in der Hand. „Natürlich komme ich mit.“ Zusammen suchten wir das Gate von dem ich flog, auf der Treppe trafen wir dann auf die Rothaarige Eva aus Österreich. Sie flog auch mit mir nach Neuseeland, was mich echt beruhigte. Sie war super nett und ich mochte ihren Akzent total gerne. Im Gegensatz zu mir war sie schon seit gestern Abend unterwegs und hatte die ganze Nacht im Zug gesessen. Da hatte ich es ja echt noch gut. Oder auch nicht… schoss es mir sofort durch den Kopf als ich das Gate sah. Denn im Gegensatz zu mir hatte Eva den Abschied von ihrer Mutter schon hinter sich. Ich hasste Abschiede. Bei meiner besten Freundin am Abend davor war es schon furchtbar gewesen. Ich wollte nicht gehen. Doch die Zeit tickte. „Hey, ich glaube wir sollten mal gehen.“ Sagte Eva mit einem Blick auf die Anzeigetafel. Ich schluckte und nickte dann aber. Ohne meine Mum anzusehen umarmte ich sie ganz fest. Der Kloss in meinem Hals wurde dicker und die erste Träne lief mir über die Wange. Meine Mum sagte Sachen wie „Beste Zeit deines Lebens“ und „Viel Spaß“ und „ich beneide dich so!“ aber so richtig zuhören konnte ich ihr gar nicht, ich war darauf konzentriert die Tränen zurückzuhalten. „Tschöö“ entschlossen ließ ich sie los und ging mit Eva zu den Kontrollen. Mein Pass wurde gescannt, die erste Tür ging auf und ich ging hindurch. Vor mir erschien ein Bildschirm… mit meinem Gesicht. Das Gerät schoss ein Foto von mir, vermutlich um mich mit meinem Pass zu vergleichen, dann schwang auch die zweite Tür auf und ich ging hindurch. Dann drehte ich mich noch einmal um, Eva stand noch vor der ersten Schleuse. Sie schien Probleme mit ihrem Pass zu haben, also suchte ich die vor dem Gate stehengebliebene Menge ab und fand zwischen all den Leuten auch meine Mum. Ich winkte ihr zu und sie lächelte mich an, winkte zurück und dann drehte ich mich um und ging ohne noch einmal zurückzugucken endgültig durch die letzte Tür.
    „Ich gehe auf ein Abenteuer!“
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  • Day 4

    Wuppertal

    August 25, 2021 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

    To Leoś: Schwebahn jest super bo jedziesz nad rzeką,autostradą i masz wrażenie że lecisz

  • Day 18

    Heimweg … 🚶🏽‍♂️

    August 14, 2021 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    … und dann noch ein 20-Minuten-Spaziergang von der Schwebebahn-Station „Varresbecker-Strasse“ zum Hotel hoch an den Otto-Hausmann-Ring 203 … 🚶🏽‍♂️

  • Day 17

    Wuppi-Duppi

    April 17, 2018 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Kaum zu glauben: Wir verlassen die vorletzte Station, den sicheren Hafen Elfie und Franz und queren den Rhein auf dem Weg nach Wuppertal. Dort begrüßen uns Lisas Cousine Martha mit Gökhan, sowie Mina und Viktor, mit Wein, Traubenschorle und reichlich Kindersabber. Mal sehen was auf uns zukommt.Read more

  • Day 1

    Wuppertal Hardtanglage

    June 4, 2015 in Germany ⋅ 🌙 18 °C

    The Hardtanglage is a park on a hill in Wuppertal, overlooking the city centre. I spent most of the day sat in the park there, eating ice cream. Everyone else, it seemed, had the same idea.

You might also know this place by the following names:

Bahnhof Wuppertal-Elberfeld

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