A Rainy Day in ....Dusseldorf, Germany
Dusseldorf is not the first city most Americans think of when planning a trip to Germany unless your interests are in the German fashion industry or you're traveling to one of the many international trade shows held there each year. You might find yourself in Dusseldorf as a departure city for a Rhine cruise or as a gateway to nearby Belgium or Holland. But if you just passed through without stopping to take a look, you'd be missing some truly unique sights that the city has to offer.
The city is pretty compact and easy to negotiate with public transportation once you get your bearings. I would have appreciated a tourist information office inside the train station to help me figure out whether I needed a subway or streetcar line to get to my hotel. Fortunately, someone directed me to the streetcar office across the street from the station, where a nice gentleman sold me a ticket and told me the 709 tram across the street would drop me off a few feet from the Sorat Hotel.
I explored Dusseldorf from the Old Town along the Rhine Promenade to the funky modern architecture of the Media Harbor. I discovered the city's commitment to contemporary art in some of its many art museums. I enjoyed a taste of nightlife at Roncalli's Apollo Varieté, and I seriously investigated the traditional German custom of afternoon Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee and cake). I also paid a visit to the Dusseldorf Film Museum, and took a rainy side trip to the nearby Neander Valley, discovery site of the Neanderthal man and home of the Neanderthal Museum.
For more rainy day Dusseldorf alternatives, check out the Dusseldorf Links page.
Kayte Deioma
In 1976 - six years before the first Cirque du Soleil production - Circus Roncalli was born. It was the brain child of Bernhard Paul, an Austrian who left his job as Art Director at an international advertising agency to follow his dream of starting a circus. His new spectacle was dense with the world's finest physical circus acts. For over 30 years Circus Roncalli has toured Europe, becoming a much-loved tradition.
The original Apollo Theater on Dusseldorf's Graf Adolf Platz provided variety shows including singers, dancers, comedians, acrobats and later film components from 1899 into the 1950s. It was torn down in the 1960s to make way for an office tower. The New Apollo is a glass-enclosed dinner theater tucked under the Rheinknie Bridge, overlooking the Rhine River.
In1997, Paul combined his successful Roncalli circus acts with Dusseldorf's long history of vaudeville-style variety entertainment to open Roncalli's Apollo Varieté in the New Apollo Theater. Once again, acts from around the world come to astound and amaze visitors with their feats of human strength, agility and dexterity, as well as musical and vocal prowess....
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Dusseldorf is all about art and aesthetics. From its architecture and public art installations to its ten art museums and numerous galleries. You'll see Kunst, the German word for art, everywhere. You'll find the museum kunst palest (sic), Kunsthalle, Kunstverein, Kunstsammlung, Kunstacademie - palace, hall, association, collection and academy respectively - as well as the shortened K20 and K21 for 20th and 21st century art.
Obviously, if you only have a short period of time, you can't see everything. You can choose your art museums based on your interests - the museum kunst palast for art from the Middle Ages through the present, K20 for 20th century art, K21 for 21st century art, the Hetjens for ceramics, or the Kunsthalle for changing contemporary exhibits, for example. Or you can do what I did and make a decision based purely on geography.
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Like afternoon tea in England, Kaffee und Kuchen or coffee and cake is a time-honored ritual in Germany. Rather than serving dessert after a meal as we do in the U.S., sweets get their own dedicated meal mid-afternoon. Restaurants may hold strictly to their Coffee Table hours of 2:30 or 3 pm until 5, then re-open for dinner at 6:30 or 7 pm, but cafes are more flexible, and will serve you coffee and cake until they run out of cake.
When it comes to coffee, German varieties tend to be on the mild side. Kaffee Hag is the only brand of decaffeinated coffee widely available in Germany, but most cafes carry only caffeinated coffee. They may have herbal teas or hot chocolate as a decaffeinated alternative. Some cafes also serve alcohol.
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