Where's Bertie? He's in a car park sandwiched between the cemetary and Volksgarten (part of the Süd Park) in Düsseldorf. Exact location: 51.20546, 6.79476
Weather: wall-to-wall sunshine and warm by afternoon.
Having successfully spent five days travelling 50km up the road, we drove the final leg up to Düsseldorf this morning, popping Bertie into this car park that sits within 30m of tomorrow's parkrun course, albeit it's about 700m across the park to the start/finish area.
The park was the first excursion of the day, walking a lap of tomorrow's course. It's another good park, but with such a network of paths that, even after a recce, we will be relying on the course being well marked.
One of the ponds in the park
With that lap complete, we crossed the car park and took a little look at the cemetary, which wasn't wow-worthy like the one we visited in Köln, but this memorial caught our eyes:
Seeing the pillars listing names we assumed it was a war memorial, but no - it's the 'grave field' (per Google Translate) of the bodies given to medical research at the local university.
Lunch back at Bertie and a bit of admin, then it was off out again, for an adventure. Being 4km or so from the sights of the city, there wasn't time left in the day, even if there had been the inclination, to go on foot. Thus, it was finally time to try electric scooters as a form of transport.
The App for one of the providers was downloaded onto both of our phones, payment details entered and we scrutinized the map to find where the nearest scooters were located. That's where we ran into a problem, as there wasn't anywhere nearby where two were parked together. Divide and conquer it was and we met up on a street corner for me to navigate us into the city.
A little nerve-wracking, especially when we got onto a road without a bike path and, in my Britishness, I felt like it was wrong to ride on the pavement. We dithered and observed others, then proceded, albeit at a walking pace due to the pedestrians around.
Finding a designated parking space we ditched the scooters about 400m from our first port of call in the city: Königsallee. It's a stretch of 'canal' (officially so; I'd say it was a long, thin, rectangular lake) sited prettily between an avenue of chestnut trees, and spanned by a couple of picturesque iron bridges. Wikipedia tells me it was renamed as 'Königsallee' in 1848 as a concilliatory move after an incident involving horse manure being lobbed at the King.
Königsallee
Having walked its length, then veered off towards the Rhein, we didn't have to go very far before I declared that Düsseldorf is a much more visually interesting city than Köln. Köln may win on museums (if we were inclined to visit any at the moment), but Düsseldorf wins hands-down on outdoor wandering.
Old Rathaus (largely rebuilt post-war)
Telecom tower - I could see this from the Obstweg route I did a couple of days ago. It's possible to visit an observation deck on this one.
Eye-catching twisted spire on the Basilica
View along the two-level riverside promenades
With rush-hour rapidly approaching, we navigated our way back to a scooter parking area that said it had two scooters available (it did, albeing one was up the road a little way). Our route back was better than the outward one, allowing us to whizz along a bike lane in the road (rather than one on a pavement) at top speed (20km/h). Unfortunately, not all went smoothly as in the middle of a major road junction, my phone (with which I was navigating) launched itself out of the scooter's phone holder, and crashed onto the carriageway. Mick managed to avoid going over it, and I quickly backtracked to retrieve it. Incredibly, it survived with only some cosmetic marks to the bezel and a damaged screen protector (at least that did its job!). I have to assume I didn't insert the phone properly, as the built-in mounts are so grippy that I can't see how it could come out if properly inserted.
Anyhoo, we got back to Bertie having spent more on the scooters than we would have on public transport*, but it added an element of novelty and fun (with a modicum of scared) into the afternoon (and didn't require FFP2 masks, of which we still have none). We now rather wish we'd bitten the e-scooter bullet back in Hannover.
Sculpture of the day (excuse the light - nowt I could do about it)
(*We each accepted the introductory offer of a month's 'unlocks' for €1, rather than paying €1 per unlock. There's a slim chance we may use scooters elsewhere next week, but even if we don't, it still saved €2 today. The charge was then 22c per minute, although I got some sort of a credit for dropping off/picking up at a designated space. All in, it came to around €8 each, return.)
Weather: wall-to-wall sunshine and warm by afternoon.
Having successfully spent five days travelling 50km up the road, we drove the final leg up to Düsseldorf this morning, popping Bertie into this car park that sits within 30m of tomorrow's parkrun course, albeit it's about 700m across the park to the start/finish area.
The park was the first excursion of the day, walking a lap of tomorrow's course. It's another good park, but with such a network of paths that, even after a recce, we will be relying on the course being well marked.
With that lap complete, we crossed the car park and took a little look at the cemetary, which wasn't wow-worthy like the one we visited in Köln, but this memorial caught our eyes:
Lunch back at Bertie and a bit of admin, then it was off out again, for an adventure. Being 4km or so from the sights of the city, there wasn't time left in the day, even if there had been the inclination, to go on foot. Thus, it was finally time to try electric scooters as a form of transport.
The App for one of the providers was downloaded onto both of our phones, payment details entered and we scrutinized the map to find where the nearest scooters were located. That's where we ran into a problem, as there wasn't anywhere nearby where two were parked together. Divide and conquer it was and we met up on a street corner for me to navigate us into the city.
A little nerve-wracking, especially when we got onto a road without a bike path and, in my Britishness, I felt like it was wrong to ride on the pavement. We dithered and observed others, then proceded, albeit at a walking pace due to the pedestrians around.
Finding a designated parking space we ditched the scooters about 400m from our first port of call in the city: Königsallee. It's a stretch of 'canal' (officially so; I'd say it was a long, thin, rectangular lake) sited prettily between an avenue of chestnut trees, and spanned by a couple of picturesque iron bridges. Wikipedia tells me it was renamed as 'Königsallee' in 1848 as a concilliatory move after an incident involving horse manure being lobbed at the King.
Having walked its length, then veered off towards the Rhein, we didn't have to go very far before I declared that Düsseldorf is a much more visually interesting city than Köln. Köln may win on museums (if we were inclined to visit any at the moment), but Düsseldorf wins hands-down on outdoor wandering.
With rush-hour rapidly approaching, we navigated our way back to a scooter parking area that said it had two scooters available (it did, albeing one was up the road a little way). Our route back was better than the outward one, allowing us to whizz along a bike lane in the road (rather than one on a pavement) at top speed (20km/h). Unfortunately, not all went smoothly as in the middle of a major road junction, my phone (with which I was navigating) launched itself out of the scooter's phone holder, and crashed onto the carriageway. Mick managed to avoid going over it, and I quickly backtracked to retrieve it. Incredibly, it survived with only some cosmetic marks to the bezel and a damaged screen protector (at least that did its job!). I have to assume I didn't insert the phone properly, as the built-in mounts are so grippy that I can't see how it could come out if properly inserted.
Anyhoo, we got back to Bertie having spent more on the scooters than we would have on public transport*, but it added an element of novelty and fun (with a modicum of scared) into the afternoon (and didn't require FFP2 masks, of which we still have none). We now rather wish we'd bitten the e-scooter bullet back in Hannover.
(*We each accepted the introductory offer of a month's 'unlocks' for €1, rather than paying €1 per unlock. There's a slim chance we may use scooters elsewhere next week, but even if we don't, it still saved €2 today. The charge was then 22c per minute, although I got some sort of a credit for dropping off/picking up at a designated space. All in, it came to around €8 each, return.)
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