Tony & Nikki Ruddock's holiday photographs - Germany
Bearing in mind my uncle lives in Berlin and Nikki has a cousin that lives near Munich we haven't actually been to Germany as often as we should...
It a country I have wanted to revisit since living there between 1977 and 1980. I was only twelve years old when we moved there (my father was in the British Army). We lived on an Army married quaters estate in a village called Hastenbeck which was just a few kilometres outside of Hameln (or Hamelin to give it the English spelling). I was amazed at how clean and organised the place was and there seemd to be so much to do. I didn't particularly like the English school out there so I came back to boarding school in England, which was a hard choice but looking back probably the right one. When the family moved back to the UK that was the end of our time in Germany.
The next visit was in 1997, I worked for a Swiss company at the time and they had factories in Switzerland, Germany, France and England and they had an inter company football tournament. I can't really play football all that well, but joined in as they were short of players - I needn't have worried as I managed to injure myself the week before we went (totally unrelated to football) and was unable to play - water carrier that was my duty! We had a superb time, the place where we stayed, Bruchsal, was very pleasant, the weather absolutely roasting. One thing that really stood out was the big party on the Saturday evening - the German's certainly know how to entertain. I don't remember the outcome of the football competition, needless to say our team from England didn't win! On the journey back we stopped off at Heidelberg (somewhere I had visited when we lived in Germany) which is a very picturesque towna and well worth a visit.
It is widely known that in Summer 2006 the football World Cup was held in Germany, we didn't attend but a couple a people at work did. They went to Düsseldorf to see the games and came back with glowing reports of what a great place it was. One of the budget airlines has regular flights from Leeds/Bradford so we booked to go for a long weekened in November 2006. Flight time was just an hour and it's about a fifteen minute train journey from the airport into the centre of Düsseldorf. Our hotel was in the Altstadt (Old Town) which was a bit of a walk from the train station. There was plenty going on the weekend we were there - the Festival of Lights and the Carnival as well as a football match between Fortuna Düsselfdorf and St Pauli (from Hamburg). The Alstadt is where the majority of the bars and restaurants are so it was quite busy but we didn't see any trouble, just an awful lot of people enjoying themselves. well worth a visit.
Düsseldorf is quite a large city with a huge shopping centre (out of the Altstadt). Some of the shops have to be seen to be believed and the number of department stores was incredible and the quality the shops makes London look very poor in comparison. The shopping centre aside there is plenty to see and do - you're never stuck for somewhere to eat and drink. A visit to Düsseldorf wouldn't be complete without sampling one of the many Altbier (Old Beer) varieties that are available or trying the local herb liquer Killepitsch which is very warming on a cold winter's evening!. Other possibilities are a pleasant stroll along the banks of the Rhine, a trip up the Rheinturm (Rhine Tower) from where you can expereince spectacular. views across Düsseldorf and the surrounding area, the city museum makes for an interesting afternoon plus there are numerous art galleries.
Overall we were impressed with Düsseldorf and whilst not as diverse as New York or London it is somewhere we would definitely go back to.