Page 30 - Willi Distel Diary

The Ruhr, Rhineland and Holland leg of Willi's journeyman walking tour, spring 1926

Translated from Willi's German.

to Bochum, a dreadful city, cramped, dirty, and where squalor is trumps. Essen, where I then spent the night, is the same. Duisburg is already somewhat friendlier again; very interesting is the harbour, the largest inland harbour in Europe - one can hardly picture what is loaded there. A splendid city is Krefeld, though I had the feeling it was a little provincial. From there I went with a comrade to Neuss, an old and splendid little town, where the board was very good. By now I was tired of wandering; I wanted to work again, and since Duesseldorf was recommended to me I made my first attempt there. I had to do a work trial and was engaged at once. Since I had my suitcases in Cologne, I now went to Cologne to fetch them. Cologne, an old great city, had unfortunately very narrow streets. Very interesting is the cathedral, which I climbed. From Duesseldorf I visited Koenigswinter and the Drachenfels, a splendid excursion. Also Elberfeld and Barmen, the big cities in the Wuppertal, with their unique suspension railway. We also visited the highest bridge in Germany, 107 m high, between Remscheid and Solingen, and Schloss Burg. And not least I made a splendid trip to Holland. We visited the sights there and bathed in the rough North Sea at Scheveningen. Verden and Wunderthal we visited as well.

Places: Bochum, Essen, Duisburg, Krefeld, Neuss, Duesseldorf, Koeln, Koenigswinter, Drachenfels, Wuppertal, Remscheid, Solingen, Scheveningen

Interesting facts

The Ruhr coalfield. Bochum, Essen and Duisburg form the core of the Ruhr, Europe's biggest industrial region, packed with coal mines, steelworks and smoke. That grimy, crowded character is exactly what Willi recoils from here.
Europe's largest inland port. Duisburg-Ruhrort really is the largest inland harbour in Europe, where Rhine barges transfer the coal, ore and steel of the Ruhr - genuinely astonishing quantities of cargo, as he notes.
Cologne Cathedral. The Koelner Dom is Germany's most visited landmark, a vast Gothic cathedral finally completed in 1880 after six centuries. Visitors could (and still can) climb the south tower's spiral stair for the view he mentions.
The Drachenfels. The Drachenfels is a hill above Koenigswinter on the Rhine, crowned by a ruined castle and famous in Romantic legend as the dragon's lair of the Nibelung saga - a classic day-trip beauty spot reached by an old rack railway.
The Wuppertal Schwebebahn. The suspension railway linking Elberfeld and Barmen (today's Wuppertal) opened in 1901 and hangs beneath its rails above the river - a genuinely unique piece of engineering, still running today.
Scheveningen and the North Sea. Scheveningen, the seaside resort of The Hague in the Netherlands, was one of the grandest bathing resorts on the North Sea coast, a popular destination just over the German border.