With around 17.9 million inhabitants, North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous federal state in Germany and the fourth largest in terms of area at around 34,100 square kilometers. 30 of the 81 major German cities are in its heavily urbanized area.
The northern part of the Rhine-Ruhr conurbation is formed by the heavily urbanized Ruhr area with the centres of Dortmund, Essen, Duisburg and Bochum. Its economic rise in the early 19th century was based on industrialization and the mining industry, particularly ore and coal mining.
The Route of Industrial Culture is a tourist themed route that leads to the most important industrial-historical sites in the Ruhr area and serves as a starting point for marketing the Ruhr area as a tourist region.
There are numerous technology and industrial museums in the Ruhr area, such as the German Mining Museum in Bochum, the Museum of German Inland Shipping in Duisburg, the Recklinghausen substation, the DASA – working world exhibition and the Hoesch Museum in Dortmund, and the Bochum-Dahlhausen Railway Museum in Bochum and the decentralized museums Westphalian Industrial Museum and Rhenish Industrial Museum. There are also several art museums in the Ruhr area, such as the Museum Folkwang in Essen, the Lehmbruck Museum and Museum Küppersmühle in Duisburg, the Ludwig Gallery in Oberhausen Castle, the Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum in Hagen and the Museum Ostwall in Dortmund. With the opening of the Capital of Culture in 2010, the Ruhrlandmuseum was reopened as the Ruhr Museum in the former coal washing plant of the Zollverein colliery. The Zollverein colliery and coking plant in Essen was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2001. In 2010, Essen represented the European Capital of Culture region.
After a few years of abstinence, also due to the complex and sometimes far away leading project work, it finally should allow the time for small tour by motorcycle.
Every year, about 800,000 tourists visit the city of Xanten, located in the northwest of Germany, mostly because of its historic center, but also due to the archaeological park of the Roman Colonia Ulpia Traiana and the leisure center with its distinctive cycling and walking routes in the relatively flat terrain of the Rhine meadows.
A meeting with Andreas should happen in Cologne, which was supposed to serve "just" the testing of the touring bike HNF XD2, this is followed in an article shortly, quickly expanded to a visit of an old churchyard next to Vitalis Church, which we had agreed as a meeting point.
Once again on the way between the lock Herbede and the castle ruin Hardenstein on the Ruhr Valley cycle path, the ferry Hardenstein forms a possibility to cross the Ruhr, whereby the ferry closes the gap in the strongly frequented bicycle net along the Ruhr.
The Kemnader lake is located between Bochum, Witten and Hattingen and as a popular destination attracts outdoor fans from all over North Rhine-Westphalia.
Once again, one of our project supporters has send news regarding the installation of his new travel concept "BT Voyage", traveling by bicycle and the mini-caravan B-Turtle which origins from Vienna.
It was originally intended as the idea of a late summer walk that took us to Kettwig at Ruhr river on a lovely afternoon.
The beautiful weather had lured us again below the open sky to Baldeneysee near Essen, where we, supplied with coffee, homemade waffles, no longer hot cherries and whipped cream, wanted to hike the castle ruins New Isenburg, which are located in the Essen district Bredeney.
Our short walking tour through the centre of Cologne had lead us into the direction of Central Train Station and to Hohenzollern Bridge, where the architecture of the bridge does not only counts to the peculiarities of Cologne, but is also the original place, at least for Germany, of an interesting tradition to be seen in thousands: the Love Locks.