Dusseldorf ~ 1,000 trains a day!

Left London reluctantly… But I knew there was going to be an awesome adventure ahead in Germany, one of my top 5 favourite countries in the world

DUSSELDORF

Capital city in the state of North Rhine Westphalia

FUN FACT : The city is a major hub in the Deutsche Bahn (DB) railway network which covers the whole of Germany. More than 1,000 trains stop daily at Düsseldorf’s Central Station!

It is said that Dusseldorf emerged in the 7th / 8th C. from tiny fishing villages that grew up around the place where the Reine river met the Dussel River, hence the origin of the name of the city

Population – 150m people live within a 500km Radius

In the city centre there are 639,407 (2017)

The most common foreign nationality is Turkish

Flight from London to Dusseldorf Flughafen

Eurowings Business Class! They call it “best” class… Hello! They put us through our own customs queue and everything… Easy to get used to!

Business class
For some reason I am not aware of we got an upgrade

Seats 1a, 1c and 2a we got free food included of a german style sandwich and beef jerky with prosecco which was really nice!

Took 1hr to get there and it was a very comfortae flight, we caught the S11 train to Dusseldorf HBF which cost €2.80 and took 12 minutes, train arrived at 3:54pm so we had to wait from 3:27 – compared to Sydney Trains it’s not so bad huh…

The train map is similar but not as good as London’s and it’s easy to get a hang of… I always look for the city I’m in and the main train station HBF “Haubahnhof” and try to book my Accomodation close to the main train station for easy access to places

The walk from the HBF took around 5-10mins as I made sure to book a place close to the station

Our Accomodation… Wasn’t the best or cleanest this time, the place was obviously someone’s little unit they were renting out… Decent enough they just got too excited with the IKEA furniture and there was no where to move lol

Bookings.com – “cosy central apartment” Dusseldorf €120 for 2 x nights

Dusseldorf is an international business and financial hub

Who doesn’t like German supermarkets!? Seriously, Aldi on steroids!

Most importantly… Less than $4au for a 6 pack of beer! Heaven help me lol

GUTEN TAG to my friend Peggy! We met in Burma in January and cycles around there for 2 weeks and just by chance happened to be in Dusseldorf where she lives

Met with Peggy at Ravni and had drinks

Rain storm so strong after saying bye to Peggy had to run back to my accomodation and it poured down like theres no tomorrow! It was really hot during the day and then this massive storm at night cold and windy… I felt like I was in Sydney again!

People screaming and singing outside really loud, having fun on a Saturday night, made me smile 🙂

Dusseldorf ~Day #2

My 2nd day in Dusseldorf was with my personal tour guide Peggy 😉 I was lucky to have her free that day to show me around her awesome city!

Most importantly, a drink to celebrate!

And now, back to the exploring…

This city is just so chilled and easy going, great to wander around and enjoy the buildings and the ambience of the place, it was the weekend we were there and everyone was out and about at the book market (99.7% all books in German) and drinking along the Rheine River, I really felt relaxed and was trying to fit in with the drinking culture here 😂🍸 it’s more about the alcohol than the coffee it seems… I’m definitely out of practise!

There was a good mix of the old and the new architecture

Kaiserswerth

Peggy then took us on the boat for an hour, I love how you pay €10 and get unlimited drinks, including alcoholic, throughout the whole trip! Thats like $15au… Geez, so cheap… Drinking beer on the Rhine… Stop me from feeling really German now!