An experience tour along the Rhine: running, skating, biking... what you want
Tour 1: Down by the riverside (10 km)
The biggest construction of Duesseldorf, the Rhinetower, is our starting-point
and with a height of 234m not to fail. From the look-out platform we have a fascinating panorama.
Unfortunately we can't involve the tower in our running tour, because the staircase is closed for pedestrians.
We pass the parliament of North-Rhine-Westphalia, an interwoven glass construction, symbolising the complexity of democratic institutions.
Now we reach the Rhine embankment and move straight forward to the north. Until 1993 this route was dominated by a fussing city motorway. Then a tunnel was build to relocate the traffic underground. Today the motor free area at the Rhine bank is the most popular promenade and the living in the city has got a new impetus.
We are passing on the right hand the famous Altstadt and are running towards the old Schlossturm, the only remain of the castle of Duesseldorf, which was 1872 destroyed by the flames.
Another landmark follows. No, we are not in Pisa, also Duesseldorf has a leaning tower : the steeple of the St.Lambertus church, which is surrounded with legends. Who was responsible for the misery? The revenge of the devil or the master builder? Well, responsible were quite simply the twisted roof beams, who had to be renewed after a thunderstrike in 1815.
If your condition allows only a small round, turn to the left, cross the Rhine on the Oberkasseler bridge and go back on the other side of the Rhine.
We prefer the big lap and go straight forward, passing the Kunstmuseum, which remembers us to the fabled reputation of Duesseldorf as an art centre, until the day, when the former Bavarian rulers of the North Rhine had stolen most of the splendour and brought it secretly to Munich, because they bartered away their Rhenish estates to Napoleon in order to be appointed by the emperor to kings of Bavaria.
A circular tower, the head office of the VICTORIA insurance and centre of the ERGO group, shows us where today the money is and who controls the purse-strings.
We are passing now the sport harbour and the house boat docks and turn on the Theodor-Heuss-Bruecke to the other side of the Rhine. Here we are running back the same distance and enjoy ourselves either to the old villa façades of the trendy upper class people of Oberkassel or we regard on the other side of the Rhine the just passed Altstadt.
On the Rhein-Knie-Bruecke we turn back to our starting point, the Rheinturm and must decide now, if we prolong our lap running around the port of Duesseldorf.
Tour 2: Brave new media-world (7 km)
What the glittering suburb "La Defence" means for Paris that is the media-harbour for Duesseldorf; a fair of modernistic
pilot architecture.
But in spite of all the glamour and glitter there is corporal defect: the lack of payable housing accommodation for people like you and me. And in this way the whole has the charm of a glittering iceberg.
Where are we running to?
"The devil knows," an inner voice is answering, simply straight forward on the Hammer Strasse passing the new Zollhof.
Formerly this was a terrain where commodities could be stored tax-free. Today it is an art and media centre and the crooked GEHRY-BAUTEN produce the impression of a kubistic sculpture.
We continue our tour on the Hammer Strasse and reach the Multiplex cinema. Lke in the film "STAR TRECKS" we dive through a tunnel into another world and enter the old village of Hamm, the standing-place of conservative vegetable farmers.
At the border of that village we follow the railway line and reach the Rhine. Now we move back to the harbour in a wide lap, between gulf place to the left and power station to the right.
In the end we cross the harbour mouth on an elegant spanning bridge, which rewards us with an imposing outlook on the new and the old Duesseldorf.