It’s not very often that I visit a sight with my mum which she and I both like. We are different travellers, she enjoys roaming around a city and exploring shopping districts, whereas I prefer taking in sights and experiencing different cultures. You can’t make my mum happy with a visit to a museum – therefore, the trip we made together to Paris was not her favourite activity and whenever I propose a new trip she checks with me whether I’m planning to rush past museums or if she has time to shop.

Völklinger Hütte

When we were staying in Germany this autumn, my mum volunteered to join me on a visit to Völklinger Hütte; this was one of the rare times my mum decided to visit a museum with me. This UNESCO Heritage listed site is located in the village Völklingen in Saarland which is next to the city where my grandparents live. My 80+ year old grandfather hadn’t visited the site for a long time either so he decided to join us.

Völklinger Hütte (also known as Völklingen Ironworks) is a bit of a strange UNESCO site in comparison to the other sites I have visited (for example Great Barrier Reef, Statue of Liberty, Angkor, Great Wall). It’s actually pretty unique compared to all the sites listed. It is one of the rare instances where UNESCO has decided to list a place of industry, rather than a place of life.

The ironworks have gone out of production, but they are the only example in Western Europe and North America, of an integrated ironworks that was built and equipped in the 19th and 20th centuries and has remained completely intact. Nowadays, it serves fully as a museum.

At its peak in 1965, 17,000 people were employed at the ironworks, so you can imagine the impact on the city when twenty years later (after a worldwide steel crisis) production seized. Walking through the monstrous factory you do get a sense of what it must have been like back in the peak days, only thankfully the scorching heat and deafening noise of the machines are left out of the experience.

Museum

Entrance to the site costs 15 euro. You can take a map from the entrance, but after failing to make sense of the route the map tries to describe we gave up and gave in to the beauty of our surroundings instead.

There are a few main areas in the ironworks worth exploring:
The Visitor Centre tells visitors the history of the ironworks and how all the different machines used to work. Most of this is inside, but you can step outside to look at the beautiful viewpoints. The ScienceCentre Ferrodrom has multimedia elements and apparently also some interactive elements which would be fun for children.

There is a 7,000m walk around the area, which takes up two to three hours.

The area called Paradise is my favourite. It’s a walk outside where you can see several instances of nature reclaiming the factory. Machinery is overgrown with plants and trees are working their way through the track on which carts used to transported steel. I wonder how much longer we will be able to see the old machinery before nature has completely taken over.

Viewpoint

I love climbing up things to view sights or cities from a distance – it’s the climbing down that’s usually an issue for me but not when there are stairs.

At the ironworks that’s thankfully possible. I managed to convince my mum – who’s afraid of heights – to make the trek up the stairs with me to admire the power of the ironworks from 27m high. That’s what I told her, because in actual fact you can go even higher to enjoy the view from the top of the blast furnaces.

I didn’t foresee the fact that the area on which you walk is made from chain-like and therefore see-through material. She was hanging on to the railings for dear life but when we arrived back safely on solid ground she did agree that the view was totally worth it.

On the way down to the 27m high platform, we were surprised by my grandfather. He approached us from a distance so I didn’t believe it was him – how could he have climbed all those stairs? I mean, he’s sprightly, but not sprightly enough to climb up 27m of stairs. It certainly was him though and he explained that the museum staff saw him standing downstairs waiting for us and decided to let him use the elevator. This was the first time he got to see the majestic ironworks from above.

Conclusion

It’s difficult to explain why but seeing the mammoth machinery of the olden days and seeing nature reclaiming the factory is well-worth the trip to Völklinger Hütte. I am guessing that not many travellers would make a detour to Saarland in Germany to visit the ironworks. Travelling through Saarland is an experience on its own though, and I would heartily recommend it to anyone – especially if you like food. I have already written a post about Saarbrücken but I have a mind to write more posts about the area (particularly about the local cuisine) so keep an eye on my blog if you’re interested in learning more about Saarland.