An Ionian seaside town, Avola is a mix of old and new. The town focuses heavily on the sea, with its history as a tuna fishing port. Today, the remains of the Vecchia Tonnara at the wharf are a stone backdrop to the sandy beaches. Avola dates back to a pre-Greek people called the Sicani.…
Located about 11 kilometres north of Catania, it is the perfect little commune to visit during the ottobrata – the local festivity that occurs every October here in Sicily, celebrating the fruits of the land: frutti di terra. The first encounter went wrong already 🙂 Approaching the booth with fruit, I have noticed quince – one…
If something is worth visiting in life, it is the Aeolian islands. Becasue it makes you think about winter in the south. It makes you think about simplicity of life. And it makes you realise how not to treat the tourists: just some bags of potatoes that need to be shipped from one island to…
I haven’t had a chance to spent a bit more time discovering this city. But just a glimpse and it made me think to re-visit and make it’s due. When the time will come, I promise to update with more photos. But for now, enjoy the story 🙂 Several civilizations settled in Milazzo and left…
I didn’t expect much from this harbour city, to be honest. I knew they have a great beer – Messina cristali di sale: a great Sicilian beer brewed since 1923 and one of the most loved Italian beers. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy.…
Senlis is a city in the northern French department of Oise, Hautes de France. Cute, medieval and charming. It offered us great peek into history: The monarchs of the early French dynasties lived in Senlis, attracted by the proximity of the Chantilly forest. Senlis is situated on the river Nonette. Senlis was known in early Roman imperial times as Augustomagus. During the 3rd century, a seven-meter…
The Château de Chantilly is one of the finest jewels in the crown of France’s cultural heritage. It is the work of a man with an extraordinary destiny: Henri d’Orléans, Duke of Aumale, son of the last King of France, Louis-Philippe. This historic French château located in the town of Chantilly, Oise, about 50 kilometres north of Paris. The site…
The Scala dei Turchi is a rocky cliff on the coast of Realmonte, near Porto Empedocle. It has become a tourist attraction, partly due to its mention series of detective stories about Commissario Montalbano. The cliffs lie between two sandy beaches and are a limestone rock formation in the shape of a staircase, hence the name. The latter part…
Picture this episode: we parked on a roundabout. Some local approached us (my brother and me) – we thought because we should have not park in a roundabout, but then again they all did, so… in fact the guy just wanted to ask if we have cigarettes. Ok Sicily, episode n. At the roundabout is…
Enna or as the Sicilians would say Castrugiuvanni; is a city located roughly at the center of Sicily, towering above the surrounding countryside. It has earned the nicknames belvedere (panoramic viewpoint) and ombelico (“navel”) of Sicily. At 931m above sea level, Enna is the highest Italian provincial capital. To arrive there is not a piece of cake. Passing the two viaducts Morello and…
From its dramatic natural surroundings to its historic churches, Sicily has something to offer every traveler. The island of Sicily is a unique part of Italy. Its craggy mountains, wild vegetation, and omnipresent sea have fired the imagination of poets, wayfarers, and visitors alike. Though it is one of 20 Italian regions, its history under…
Aci Castello and the other Acis around are destinations not to be missed in Sicily, especially for lovers of Greek myths and literature. It is here that the poets Virgil and Ovid gave birth to the myth of Galatea and Aci and their love story. In the second half of 1100 the town was destroyed…
Some large city in a hilly region in North Rhine-Westphalia, Wuppertal is a constellation of smaller towns on the high banks of the Wupper River. In the early days of […]
Some large city in a hilly region in North Rhine-Westphalia, Wuppertal is a constellation of smaller towns on the high banks of the Wupper River. In the early days of industrialisation the Wupper Valley was a hotbed of nascent industry in a landscape of textile mills and coal mines. The wealth that these businesses brought to towns like Elberfeld is unmistakeable. And this is its main characteristic!
Chronologically, my day looked like this:
I am not kidding here, this was the very first moment we spotted when entering the city (perhaps because the Kemma concentration camp was established here in Wuppertal, or maybe because Wuppertal was famous as an important place of resistance in Germany).
Nevertheless, it was a minor occur and total contrast with the rest of the day, for sure. So give it a chance! 🙂
So, let’s say this was a zero moment and we start from 1.
Louisenviertel. Also known as the Elberfelder Altstadt, the streets around the southwest end of Luisenstraße are maybe the most elegant in Wuppertal. They are fronted by 19th-century Neoclassical mansions, totally untouched from the World War ll bombing and witnessing the industrialisation reality. Meaning, the river Wupper used to be dirty and polluted, spreading typhus and cholera among the working class. So the bourgeoisie moved up the hills to stay away from the poverty building most beautiful facades that are having today boutiques, family run-shops, cafes and restaurants on their ground floors.
We had a great lunch at Katzengold. 🙂 and then spend some time on Laurentiusplatz, featuring the Neoclassical Street.
Laurentius Church, which was completed in 1835. The entire quarter is named for its patroness, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who was Queen of Prussia at the start of the 19th century.
But nothing can prepare you for the world-famous Wuppertal Suspension Railway called Schwebebahn. Opened in 1901 by Kaiser Wilhelm ll, its trains zip through the city hanging from a steel frame like something from a steampunk comic.
The idea was never spread across the other cities as one needs ridiculous amount of steel to build this upside down railway. So the train remained in Wuppertal only and became its main attraction.
There’s no visiting Wuppertal without a ride on the city’s suspension railway, which remains a regular means of transport and a huge source of affection more than a century after it was built. Created by the engineer and entrepreneur Eugen Langen, it is the world’s oldest electric elevated railway with suspended carriages.
The line is ridden by over 80,000 people a day and has 20 stations, some of which are a joy, like the Art Nouveau Werther Brücke. It takes 35 minutes to ride from terminus to terminus, and it’s a journey worth making.
We hopped off at Adlerbrücke crossing the Friedrich-Engels Allee to reach the complex of a museum for the co-author of the Communist manifesto Friedrich Engels, who lived here, in one of the five houses the family possessed.
Although the Engels-Haus isn’t his birthplace – this was destroyed in the Second World War – Engels grew up here in the 1820s and the house has contained a museum for his life and work.
Although I do support the idea of the labour rights, a bit less of the class fight, I couldn’t ignore the pattern here. It is usually the wealthy rich young man who gets inspired by the ideas of the time. Just take a look at the silver spoon he used.
Inspired by the communist ideas, Engels, though continued family business (textile industry: ribbons, braids and laces). His father founded another business in Manchester and sent the son in one of the houses they possessed across the sea, as well.
Wuppertal, as mentioned, is considered the cradle of industrialisation in Germany. Engels was a witness to this early industrialisation. The transition from manual to factory production in the Wupper valley took place only gradually. Prosperity and wealth of the merchants and manufacturers shaped the Wupper valley as well as a housing shortage, badly paid wage, women and child labour, alcholism and dirt, impoverishment and overstrained urban poor relief. The economic dynamism attracted a lot of workers, so that around 1820, Wupper was among densely populated regions in Germany.
Engels family, of the Protestant religion, believed in Pietism – a reform movement of Protestantism, that emerged in 17th century, with the guiding principle of Profit under God’s blessing. In Pietism, economic success was regarded as visible proof of divine pleasure. Friedrich Engels didn’t believe in that. Or at least, as we have seen, he had ambivalent commitments: to family manufactured business and both the marxism. He was highly interested in Hegel philosophy.
In 1845, he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research in English cities like London, Manchester and Liverpool. Soon after that he travelled to Paris and met Karl Marx at Café de la Régence . The rest is a history.
Back to present. This blog tends to get lost too often in historical facts and conversations. 😛
It was decided to give the city an eight-meter-high monumental fountain based on the Trieste model. The Neumarkt was chosen as the location, where the construction of the new town hall was planned. In January 1900, the city fathers decided that the fountain should be placed near the main entrance on the Friedrichstrasse axis. Today, it is called Der Jubiläumsbrunnen auf dem Neumarkt.
You can sport the City Hall or the Rathaus just behind.
From the alimentation part, we didn’t eat much local. The city offers international cuisine, mostly Turkey to Middle East. But it does offer great beers, as Germany it is!
Oh, and not to forget the drive back through german Ruhr area. Historically industrial and hypocrite. Why? Because Germany leads in climate protection and is a pioneer in the development of renewable energies, asking the rest of the world (mostly pressuring the smaller countries through EU and COP) to stop the urbanisation, industrial production and charging for bad behaviour.
1 Comment »