Wuppertal

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.Read more