Germany Trip – Day 4: Düsseldorf, Essen, and Dortmund

It was supposed to rain all day so I decided that from my base in Cologne, I would visit some of the less interesting areas in the region. I started the day in Düsseldorf, whose main claim to fame is being the capital of North-Rhine Westphalia. This fact is somewhat meaningless, though, considering how interconnected the whole region is. In fact, I took the suburban rail all the way from Cologne to get there. Similarly to Cologne, Düsseldorf has a silly name, as “Dorf” means “village” in German, and Düsseldorf is definitely not that.

Since the wind was strong and the rain abundant, I did not spend much time touring the city. After a brief walk past Town Hall and the monument to Düsseldorf receiving city rights (or the Stadterhebungsmonument), I visited the Saint Lambertus Basilica, whose remarkable altar was obstructed by technology set up for some later event. I then hurried back to the metro and rode it to the main station.

The second leg of my journey took me to Essen, the historic centre of the industrial Ruhr region. Essen is known for the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex, which has long been out of use and now houses a massive museum dedicated to the Ruhr Region. The mine was one of the largest in Europe and noted for its architectural qualities. I have not been to many mines, but it seems the bar is quite low, as the buildings of the Zollverein mine are uninspiringly bland.

I reached the Zollverein by tram and spent about half an hour at the museum. I expected it to have more machinery, but the museum focusses more on archaeological discoveries and the daily lives of people living in the Ruhr region from the prehistoric past to the modern era. By the time I finished my visit, the weather had started to clear up a little, but it began to rain again by the time I reached the Essen Minster. Founded in 845, the complex was rebuilt to its 13^th century form following bombing in WWII. The nearby treasury also houses a number of beautiful artifacts, many of them made of gold and containing the relics of saints.

Across the road from the Essen Minster stands the Old Synagogue, built at the beginning of the 20^th century. Its interior is much less ornate than can be gleaned from pictures of the original; while the synagogue largely escaped bombing in WWII, its interior burned out and was converted into a museum.

My last stop for the day was Dortmund, another city in the greater Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Region. Dortmund is mostly known for its football club (I forget its exact name and I refuse to search it up because caring about sports is against my aesthetic) and sure enough, there was some kind of get-together between local fans and the fans of a Colombian team. In Dortmund, I visited Saint Reinold’s Church and took a little tour of the old city, including its Registry Office and its old battlements.