My second day in Cologne was actually spent away from that city, exploring nearby Düsseldorf as well as a Dutch town, Roermond.

Saturday, October 12, 2019

Getting to Düsseldorf took a little while, probably a half hour but I don't remember exactly, on the S-Bahn. I didn't really have much of a plan for here so I just walked around the city center and looked a a few buildings.

Platz der Deutschen Einheit, that is, German Unity Square, in Düsseldorf.

Since Düsseldorf is the capital of North Rhine-Westphalia, I had to take a picture of the Landtagshaus, the state parliament building. Such buildings are analogous to our state capitols in the US, where our state legislatures meet. This is definitely the newest, most modern one I've found; most other Landtagshäuser tend to be converted palaces.

Das Fernsehturm, the TV tower. Seems like every German city has something like this. I really wish I had gone up into the top.

This bridge over the Rhine is called Kniebrücke which means "knee bridge." The river is shallower here so you can step close to it.

And then came a totally unnecessary trip, because sometimes I think I try too hard to cover more ground than to experience where I'm at. From Düsseldorf I took a trip to Roermond, Netherlands on a FlixBus for which I had booked tickets a few days in advance. Looking back, I probably should not have done this and instead experienced more Düsseldorf. But this was my first time using FlixBus, and I got another city I can say I visited, so I don't regret it too much.

It took about 45 minutes for the bus to make the trip from Düsseldorf, outside the main train station, to Roermond, outside the Kazerneplein shopping complex. There wasn't a whole lot of room to move, and it was packed with every seat taken, but this was a bus and not a train so it's not like I was expecting legroom. At about 10€ a one way ticket for this trip was a pretty good deal (of course I had to pay the same amount again to get back), so I'm glad to see that FlixBus has expanded its reach to certain disparate regions of the US. I have a feeling I'll be riding one sometime in the next half-decade and I'd recommend it to any other travelers.

I stepped off the bus at a shopping complex in Roermond called Kazerneplein and had about two hours to bum around before catching my return bus. My first stop was for coffee to go at a café in this complex called Bakker Bart.

Outside Kazerneplein I walked south down a pedestrian only street, Marktstraat. This is your typical European main street lined with stores and restaurants. By now I can't remember the names of most places I stopped by. I know there was one where I had a frikandel. There was another place I stopped where I got a cup of French fries, the national dish of neighboring Belgium, which I was using for running fuel. There was also an outdoor farmers' market where I bought some fruits, including Bosc pears, something which I used to eat every day while living in San Antonio, Texas but is hard to find in southern Germany. I do know where I got another coffee...

I got another greasy, salty, but delicious plate of fries at another restaurant at Kazerneplein before boarding my return bus for Düsseldorf.

So Roermond was an OK diversion. There is one thing I noticed there about multilingualism. I was a little surprised to find that many of the clerks behind the counter at restaurants spoke German. I suppose I should not have been surprised, since Roermond is right on the German border; I just have a tendency to assume that most people in Western Europe only speak their own language plus English and nothing else, because that seems to be the case for many Germans, and I've heard the Swiss accused of the same. But when you live in a small country near more than one international border, it's only natural to rack up three or four languages. I similarly found a few months earlier that you can get by speaking French when visiting Belgium's Dutch-speaking cities like Ghent.

Now that I was back in Düsseldorf, I discovered that the city's annual fall fair was in full swing on the banks of the Rhine. Every German city has some kind of festival every year, usually in the fall, and here in Düsseldorf it's called Herbstkirmes.

At Herbstkirmes I stopped by a beer stand and had a glass of Schlüssel Alt, which was my first taste of Düsseldorf's beer style, Alt. Then I had another Alt, Frankenheim, at one of many restaurants lining the Rhine, Kasematten am Rheinufer, where I had stopped to fuel up for tomorrow's marathon.

A glass of Frankenheim Alt I had at Kasematten am Rheinufer.

I liked hanging around the fair for awhile, but I couldn't stay out too late. I had a marathon to run the next day!

(It just now hit me that I didn't stop at an Irish pub in Düsseldorf nor Roermond! I can't believe I didn't even think to do that, since I'm always looking for one in every city I visit.)

Some memorable street art ouside the Nippes S-Bahn station in Cologne.