The fact that I visited Düsseldorf last year shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who occasionally checks my blog. A while ago I wrote a post about the Christmas Markets in Düsseldorf. This time I’ll focus more on what to do in the city itself.

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is one of the economic centres of Germany. It’s located in the middle of the Ruhrgebiet, where most of Germany’s industry is based. Düsseldorf manages to impress mostly with its striking architecture and beautiful shopping street – but actually the emphasis should really be on the shopping street. The architecture is striking, because it’s modern with a hint of old. That’s why you can sometimes see old and new standing right next to each other.

Düsseldorf is home to quite a treasure trove. In fact, the largest urban area covered by gas lamps in the whole world can be found here. Apparently there are around sixteen thousand gas lamps in the city. The light they exude has a beautiful soft glow.

Not to mention the abundance of parks scattered around the city centre. This might be a good time to mention the fact that you have to make sure that you have an Environmental badge stuck on your car if you want to drive into the city. I didn’t have one, and I’m hoping I didn’t get caught…

Altstadt (Old Town)

The Altstadt of Düsseldorf is claimed to be the longest bar in the world – within one square kilometre, there are around 260 bars, coffee shops and brewing houses. I didn’t experience this for myself, walking around the Old Town with Christmas Markets makes you feel like you’re in the longest queue in the world, but with so many bars it’s easy to believe it can get crowded -in a good way- in the weekends.

It might not come as a surprise to you that it’s not in fact a very old Old Town. During World War II it was almost completely destroyed, the people of Düsseldorf decided to rebuild it again based on the old plans and on the foundation walls. That’s why it still looks like an old town. The actual oldest part of town is probably the Lambertus Church, which is estimated to have been built in the 12th century.

Promenade

Getting from A to B is pleasant when you can walk on the promenade next to the Rhine. I can imagine that the cafes next to the water would be a lovely place to rest your feet on a sunny day.

Rheinturm

The promenade was our way to get from the old town to the Rheinturm. This tower is 240m high – and no this isn’t anything special considering for example Burj Khalifa is 829,8m – but it does have one of those 360-degree-look-out cafes at 168m. Unfortunately, you do have to pay 6 euro to get into the tower.

If you’d ask me whether it’s worth paying that amount, I would say yes because I like look-out points (especially ones that I don’t have to climb up to). I’ve seen better views though – there’s a bit of a perpetual fog hanging over the area caused by the industry, but hey, a view-is-a-view-is-a-view.

Something I didn’t notice, because I didn’t see the tower at night is that it’s the biggest digital clock in the world. You can tell the time by counting the dots displayed on the tower. Keep an eye on it when you’re in the city.

Königsallee

It’s finally time to welcome you to the Champs-Élysées of Germany! The Kö, as it is also known, is home to many high-fashion stores and centres. My mum did a happy dance the moment we reached this street, because it meant she could shop to her heart’s content. The street is perfect for people who like to exercise and shop, because the street is split by a river so if you see a shop you like across the canal you’ll have to walk to the nearest bridge and cross it to reach the store.

It’s not the most atmospheric shopping street I’ve seen but with its many department stores and shops it does seem to be the most efficient street if you want to find all your shops in one place.

Martin-Luther-Platz

Getting a bit bored with the shopping my eye spotted a gorgeous church in one of the side alleys of the Kö. It turned out to be the Johanneskirche, which is located on a square next to the Ministry of Justice and some statues. For me this was just an excuse to leave the shopping for a minute to take some more pictures.

Food

Most of the food I had in Düsseldorf that day was consumed on the Christmas Markets, you can read about that in my other post. We did visit one restaurant for dinner. At first we were looking around the busy main streets of Altstadt, but we couldn’t find anything that wasn’t packed and/or fast-food. So I looked towards the side-alleys for refuge and then I found Zum Schiffchen.

I only just realized I was fooled a bit, because when I found it I thought it was the highly-rated restaurant I had read about on Wikitravel. Unfortunately, that place is called Im Schiffchen. Ha, if I wouldn’t have written this post I would’ve been blissfully unaware of this fact.

The atmosphere of the restaurant was lovely though and you could see it was getting ready for a busy night. We were lucky to find a table for two somewhere in the back where I also found a bust of Napoleon. Apparently, he and his general staff enjoyed drinks there after a victory parade and it’s now forever known as Napoleon’s corner.

I didn’t chose a very inspired dish, when I’m in Germany for a short period of time I like to have schnitzel. Like when I’m in Italy I like to have pasta and pizza; I’m a bit boring. My mum on the other hand went all out by ordering the pork knuckle. Look at that thing! It’s massive.

Even though I’m really happy with the choice of restaurant due to the atmosphere, the service and its history, the food wasn’t the best I’ve had in Germany. The meat was decent, the sauerkraut was downright bad, the potatoes were OK, but there was one thing I loved; the salad on the side. I don’t know what they put inside but all German salads I’ve had in restaurants had the same dressing and they’re all delicious!

Conclusion

The way I’ve laid out this post is the exact route we walked on our day trip to Düsseldorf. If there wouldn’t have been any Christmas Markets we would’ve had a lot of time to spare and we would’ve probably visited more of the old town (the Japanese garden for example) and Medienhafen, which is an area we skipped altogether.

My conclusion is two-fold: Since I live close to Düsseldorf, I’d say it’s a nice city to spend a day in. It’s nothing special, but shopping is good and reasonably cheap. If I wouldn’t have lived close by I would’ve preferred visiting other cities in the area. Of course, I can’t really be sure they’re really better because I’ve not visited more than a handful of German cities and most of them were in Saarland, but I’ll test this theory for you guys and I’ll keep you updated!