Getting lost in Dusseldorf – ask Laura!
I’ve always wanted to get lost on a city that I’ve never set foot in. The feeling is second to none – especially when the language makes you feel rather an alien and you have no internet connection (to ask Google maps what are the coordinates of your travelling pants). Well, been there – done that…
In Dusseldorf. To be very honest, at some point I have actually turned on my mobile data just to figure out if I’m going towards the city center or to the airport. But besides that I’ve used only maps, city indicators, I’ve asked people and I just randomly took some public transport routes. Exciting! Use the Düsseldorf Card, thought.
What can you do in Dusseldorf in one day?
For more professional opinions, check online, this is my own “what to do..”, and it’s quite fun. I’ve walked around 10 km in one day, I visited the EKŌ-House, a center for Japanese culture, which hosts the only Japanese temple in Europe, Japanese gardens and a traditional house with tea room. After I got myself washed in the silence and peace of the Japanese garden, I have pursued the labyrinth of Dusseldorf. It took me around 2 hours to get to the city center, taking photos, looking inside people’s gardens, sniffing the little Deutsch “je ne sais quois”. Those things that make Germans Germans and Romanians Romanians (a neat newspaper waiting at Dr. Schultz front door, some perfectly aligned sport shoes in a garden, probably after few km of jogging on Rheinkniebrücke, the smell of freshly baked Franzbrötchen).
In the city center, I visited the Filmmuseum Düsseldorf, which was almost empty (I visited Dusseldorf on a Tuesday), so I had it all by my self. The museum is a perky little gem, quite exhaustive on the Japanese directors – plenty of Hayao Miyazaki and Akira Kurosawa memorabilia.
After I got out from the movie territory, already dreaming about Howl’s Moving Castle, I grabbed a cappuccino and a mouth watering cheesecake at a cafe with view towards the Rhine (on the Rheinuferpromenade). The day was only half gone, so I wanted to get outside the pretty cosmeticized center and to see the real Dusseldorf, so I asked the barman what the fastest way is to get on the other side of the city.
I had in mind Stiftung Schloss und Park Benrath (a Baroque maison de plaisance and museum). After taking the metro half of hour in the opposite direction, making friends with a pretty boozed up little old German, with whom I was talking via signs, I finally arrived at the museum, of course too late for the full tour. The hostess told me that the explanations are solely held in German and that I should understand from the context, but the guide was such a sweet lady, adding after each German explanation a cute English summary for me.
At the end of the day, quite famished (I had to wait for my boyfriend to pick me up and go for dinner together at 6:00 pm and he finished the work at 8:00 pm), we stopped in the city center for a Berliner schnitzel – the best I’ve ever had in a while and then we drove back home.
I’m starting to becoming quite a fan of being on my own, I can take photos without being rushed, I can talk with people, enjoy the city from my own perspective, from my own height. Of course, nothing is the same if it’s not shared, but I guess from time to time, we have to learn to appreciate the time spent on our own, the time invested in our personal growth. At least, I do!
Laura Dragulin - Photo Stories 