24th – 29th July Ruhr Valley, Route Industriekultur

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We spent our 31st wedding anniversary with both champagne and rain, but didn’t notice the latter because of the former ….

Rick’s overwhelming desire to see the Industrial Route around the Ruhrgebeit led us to the Zollverein mine in Essen (another World Heritage Site). This had been the largest coal mine in Europe, highly mechanised and efficient (12000 tons per day). It is a vast acreage of gigantic industrial buildings, including an amazing coking plant - the size of the ovens and machinery, just the sheer scale of everything was quite mind-blowing. You could only feel very small and insignificant. Rick did the 2 hr guided tour of the buildings and machinery (I slept in the van). He couldn’t understand a word, but I think the machinery spoke for itself……

The mine closed in 1989, devastating communities – does this sound familiar to South Yorkshirites?

The fascination with Big Machinery was truly fuelled by our visit to Oberhausen. We’d already been up the converted gasometer, so spent 3 hours in the Industrial Museum of Heavy Industry, housed in 130 year old zinc smelting works. This was great - you could touch stuff and poke around in dusty corners.

Sheffield gets quite a few mentions in this part of Germany – the 53 ton monster steam hammer was one of ours, and CentrO, (claimed to be the ‘most unique shopping and leisure paradise’), was based on Meadowhell (yes, but is this a positive reflection?).

With lots of stops (and a sleep by the canal!) we cycled 30 km, to and from Duisport, to get a boat trip round the largest inland port in Europe –a whole different world! Scrap metal by the cube (literally), 120m long barges, coal mountains, oil terminals, massive locks, and - joy of joys – I saw containers being loaded on to a ship by a travelling crane. Please let me at it!


A wedding in a mine museum? It was really happening in the Wages Hall of Zeche Zollern in Dortmund. This was a mine like no other - an aesthetically beautiful group of neo-gothic buildings, with the most amazing art nouveau Engine House, built in 1930s. I’m okish on the architecture, but Rick did have to explain to me which were the compressors, the transformers and the winding engines – and, of course, what they did…. The exhibition was brilliant- lots of film clips, photos and equipment to play with. It gave a real feel for the day-to-day conditions (grim), and the social/political picture (grim).



On our way to the Black Forest, we spent the night on a Stellplatz in a real chocolate box place, Ladenberg, and crossed a very hairy car ferry, built for 6 cars – how big is our van…..? and why is it that there’s always an audience of men when I’m driving?

We’re now by Lake Titisee in Baden Wuttemberg, ready to pick up Ade, Will and Grace, along with Heather and Jono . We’re really looking forward to seeing them all.

We’ve managed to solve various little problems – autogas tank not filling, broken roof light, blown up inverter– all now solved by Rick. As you might expect!