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Düsseldorf and the VicinityDüsseldorf and the Vicinity
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Düsseldorf and the Vicinity

June - August 2015
A 59-day adventure by Tom Read more
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  • Tom BanksDüsseldorf and the Vicinity
    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.    Read more

  • Tom BanksDüsseldorf and the Vicinity
    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!    Read more

  • Tom BanksDüsseldorf and the Vicinity
    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.

  • Tom BanksDüsseldorf and the Vicinity
    2
    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"    Read more

  • Tom BanksDüsseldorf and the Vicinity
    Day 3

    Colourful Bilk

    June 6, 2015 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Bilk is colourful, overwhelmingly colourful. I've tried to capture some of that colour, but its hard to do in just six photos. The buildings; the cafés overspilling on to the street; the fruit stalls of oranges, watermelons, applets, strawberries. Everywhere you go, ever corner you turn, there is colour. The sun is out, it's a hundred-million degrees, and everything is drenched in light. Colour, heat, colour.Read more

  • Tom BanksDüsseldorf and the Vicinity
    Day 3

    Pentair

    June 6, 2015 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    Christine, Paddy, what's going on? Just around the corner from my house is a Pentair van, am I being followed or what? The powers that be are hunting me down! I can run, but I can't hide.

  • Tom BanksDüsseldorf and the Vicinity
    Day 3

    Konrad der Kaktus

    June 6, 2015 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    My first weekend in Germany! I can't believe it hasn't even been a week yet. This time last week, I was in Rotterdam. How much longer ago it actually feels.

    I was out late last night (the Altstadt is amazing), so slept in till about ten. When I finally rose, I was forced in to doing my laundry. What, with being completely out of socks, there was nothing else I could do. So that took about an hour, and I'm pretty sure I've shrank everything. I daren't yet find out, though.

    There are lots of other important things I need I to sort out; a bank account, for example. I must also register my address, get a national insurance number, et cetera. The list is quite long. But today I went out in search of a cactus. Priorities, you see.

    So where exactly does a man find a cactus in Düsseldorf? I had a quick search on google, and found a few garden centres scattered about the city. The nearest one to me was a mile or two south from Bilk. I committed the route to memory and set off.

    I shouldn't have done that. I really need to get myself a map or something Because Düsseldorf isn't like other cities. It is incredibly easy to get lost here. Overshoot a street, or undershoot it, and you are done for. Take a wrong turn, forget it. Once lost, you are lost.

    So I was wandering round trying to find this garden centre, but getting no where. Eventually I had to admit it, I was lost. I came across this pub with a few people sat outside. And because I was lost, because walking in the heat was making me a bit sticky, I headed inside for a beer and to inquire about directions.

    The woman behind the bar was busy carving up a pie of some sort. But, upon seeing me enter, she stopped what she was doing and asked what I wanted.

    'Ein Bier, bitte,' I said, 'und wo kann ich eine Kaktus kaufen?'

    I came across a bit strange, I'm sure.

    'Ein Kaktus?'

    'Ja.'

    'Ein Kaktus?'

    'Ja, ein Kaktus.'

    She had a think for a little while and then was all like, 'Links, rechts, links, rechts.' Left, right, left, right, she was saying, like a German Hokey Cokey. I was never going to remember it all, but at least I knew which vague direction to head in. I drank the beer (the beer here in Dusseldorf -- Altbier -- is a dark brown, with a huge head. Quite nice). I cooled down a bit, and headed back out in to the heat.

    After another 20 minutes of wandering, I found the garden centre. It was heaving. I made my way through the crowd at the marigolds and located the Cacti. Immediately, a big one jumped out at me, but at 89 Euros he had another thing coming if he thought I was going to pay that much for him. There was a little, unassuming one in front of this big show-off. And he was on sale for 1.50. I'll have him, I thought. I found him a friend and took them both over to the till. I was three Euros lighter, but I now had two cacti.

    Konrad, I'm going to call him. Konrad der Kaktus. His friend is a little weird looking, so I'm calling him Weird Willy. Willy as in Willy Brandt - although he does happen to be a bit willy shaped too.

    Konrad was parched, the poor thing. I gave him and Weird Willy a bit of water, then set them down on their shelf. Welcome to your new home boys. Should anyone so much as lay a finger on you, they will first feel a sharp prick and then have my wrath to deal with. A big responsibility, but I promise to water you both one or perhaps twice a year. You're in safe hands.    Read more

  • Tom BanksDüsseldorf and the Vicinity
    Day 5

    Rheydt, Mönchengladbach

    June 8, 2015 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 15 °C

    Rheydt was, at one point, a town in its own right. But overtime it grew. Eventually, its borders merged with Gladbach's, and the two became indistinguishable from one another.

    I work in Rheydt on a street called the Stockholtweg, which runs parallel along the perimeter of the densely wooded Zoppenbroicher park. From the first floor office, there are great views of the park. Calling it a park though, I think, is somewhat misleading; the tress are so densely packed together as to make the area impenetrable.

    I've taken to catching the train to work instead of driving. I find the whole 'driving on the other side of the road' thing quite easy. But Düsseldorf is a whole different kettle of fish.

    The train is great, though. 80 Euros for a months pass. And I can go anywhere within the region and take a friend, for free, on any train, tram or bus during the weekend. The views, too, on the commute from Düsseldorf to Mönchengladbach are spectacular. The terrain is uncannily flat, there are old windmills everywhere, there are miles of dense pine forest, and clearings of farmland and allotments. We are, after all, 15 to 20 miles from the Dutch border. The flatness and windmills shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.

     When I get off the train at Rheydt, I have a ten minute walk from the Hauptbahnhof -- through the Mönchengladbach suburbs -- to the Stockholtweg. I brought my camera along with me today and took some pictures. For there is something I find fascinating about working class Germany.

    There is a eerie stillness, like there is less going on than there should be, a slight brooding. I think its because of the buildings. They look so ornate, with facades more suited to a Baroque palace somewhere east, in the old Habsburg lands. Imperial looking buildings built for the working class? A working class -- much like in Britain -- no longer needed, surplus to requirement? As I walk through the suburbs of working class Mönchengladbach, I can't help but feel there is, lurking behind the still walls, a Rosa Luxemburg or a Christopher Isherwood.    Read more

  • Tom BanksDüsseldorf and the Vicinity
    Day 6

    The Apocalypse Tram

    June 9, 2015 in Germany ⋅ 🌙 13 °C

    Düsseldorf is a well connected city. There is the S Bahn, the U Bahn, the trams and the buses. Getting about the city is easy. Then there is the location of the city itself. Nordrhein-Westfalen -- Germany's most populous and densely populated state -- is nearly twice the size of Wales, but has over double the population of London. 18 million people live here, and Düsseldorf is the capital. Trains come and go by the minute, hastily keeping the cities of Cologne, Bonn, Wuppertal, Dortmund, Duisburg, etc, well connected. Then there are trains, several times an hour, to the nearby Netherlands and Belgium. That is a real plus side to Düsseldorf.

    But then there is the downside to living in Düsseldorf, or at least a downside to living on BachStraße in Düsseldorf. For here we have to endue the apocalypse trams. You see, Düsseldorf has really new trams, new trams, trams, old trams, and really old trams. And then it has the oldest trams in the known universe. It just so happens that these trams (strange remnants, let over from when the universe was just a fraction-of-a-millionth-of-a-second-old) make their way down BachStraße every ten minutes. And they seem to run all night long, too.

    It makes sleeping hard. And I often find myself awaking at some godforsaken hour, thinking the world is about to end, only to realise it is one of the apocalypse trams slowly passing by.

    Despite being deafening loud, they are elusive and hard to photograph. I managed to catch one on camera as it was passing, but the quality isn't very good.    Read more

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