Dusseldorf; Sunday, 02 May, 2010

Another relatively late start and it was almost 11 by the time I finally left the hotel, which proved to be to my advantage, as all the trams were really messed up. Today was Marathon day in Dusseldorf, and consequently the city centre was pretty well closed for several hours, so instead of attempting to head into the centre for a while, I headed south to the Palace at Benrath to have a look around.

I decided, before heading into the Palace to have a long wander around the grounds, and I’m glad I did as not only were they spectacular, but within minutes of going into the palace the good weather of the previous days broke and a light, penetrating drizzle broke. Quite a pain when you are walking between palace buildings, and from the palace to the tram stop, absolutely soaking if I had still been out in the park and had had to walk back to the palace.

By the time I got back into the centre of Dusseldorf (using the cunning method of catching the tram further south to a train station, then taking the train into the city centre and then using the U-Bahn, which was still working) the Marathon had been going on for over 4 hours and by the 40Km mark on the Königsalle I was expecting to see the fun runners. It appears though that in Germany marathons (unlike their British counterparts) are still run as serious sporting endeavours, rather than an excuse for attempting to kill yourself by running for 26 miles in a half tonne rhino costume.

I had a long wander round the city centre, taking advantage of virtually every road being closed to all transport including the trams, and their not being that many runners so you can easily cross the road between them.

I walked for quite a while, conscious that I appeared to be going backwards around the course as after around 30 minutes I saw a couple of very pained looking runners limping along, followed by a car with flashing lights, an ambulance, a bus and then a fleet of street sweepers cleaning up behind themselves, I think I had just found the back markers!

However, it looked like the city was going to remain closed for some time still to come, so I decided to go a bit further up the Rhine to it’s next major city, on the junction with the Ruhr, Duisburg. I went for the pretty ride, catching the U-Bahn all the way through the open countryside, taking a lot longer than the train, but seeing much more.

This was thankful, as there wasn’t much to see in Duisburg. It’s the kind of place (like Croydon) that only the town fathers could love. I had a bit of a wander around and managed to find a couple of nice buildings, but I was conscious of the very, very heavy clouds that were piling up above. Just a few yards from an underground tram stop the skies got very dark, the wind really picked up and I decided that it would be a good time to be making a hasty walk to cover.

Just a couple of meters short of shelter the skies absolutely opened. I managed to get undercover merely slightly damp, but there were people who had only been a few meters behind me who were absolutely soaked by the time they got to cover. Given the weather was deteriorating, and it was now rapidly heading for six, I caught the tram back to the Hauptbahnhof and caught the train back to Dusseldorf. It was still tipping it down when the train stopped at the Airport, but by the time we pulled into Dusseldorf a few minutes later the skies were clearing and if you hadn’t seen it you wouldn’t have believed it had been raining a few minutes earlier (apart from the massive puddles everywhere.)

I went for a bite to eat and a late wander around the city centre before heading back to the hotel to pack.