Recently did a day trip from Amsterdam to Essen, Germany and after getting out of the train station and walking thru the town centre i can say that this is the first city in Europe i've ever been to where i said to myself i will never come back here.

A cement wastleand of a town centre - oh the usual nice pedestrian shopping zone with the ubiquitous Wurst and beer stubes, etc. but even as these modern town centres, rebuilt out of WWII rubble, go this one was especially blah.

Supposedly in the cathedral there is valuable treasures but that type of thing don't interest me and i guess nearby is a former coal mine that is now a UNESCO World Industrial Heritage Site or some such thing.

Anyone have any impressions of Essen that would make me go back?

"valuable treasures but that type of thing don't interest me and i guess nearby is a former coal mine that is now a UNESCO World Industrial Heritage Site"

Speaks for itself. Please don't come back.

Actually i would have loved to see the mine.

Essen used to be on my beat. At the time, the beat included Erie (PA), Louisville, Cleveland (OH) and a clutch of towns in Cleveland (England), as well as a range of other towns in the Ruhr.

As examples of how to handle de-industrialisation, Essen and its neighbours were cleaner, greener, safer, more fun (yup. "fun"'s not a word often used about Essen. But compared to Erie or Thornaby on Tees it was almost Parisian in the delights it offered), and just all over infinitely nicer than the Rustbelt or NE England. Having a 13th century Abbey - far less vandalised than every single such churches is in England - helped too.

Detroit wasn't on the beat, though I'm scratching my head to think of one single dimension on which it beats Essen.

OK, Elmore Leonard.

But other than him: if English-speaking cities had coped one millionth as well with the Reformation, the Blitz and the collapse of hewavy industry, we might be in a position to criticise.

They didn't, and we're not.

I am not criticizing - just giving a trip report. And yes i hailed from Detroit, the absolute worst city in the western world - before fleeing to the uppermost reaches of lovely Northern Michigan.

Alright. Motown as well.

And certainly Essen never produced a Ruhrge Beat

Bah Boom.

Detroit, if you ever went there, also has a really sweet river front - the Deeee-troit River, said to be one of the world's busiest waterways for cargo. Pristine water flowing between lakes Huron, via Saint Clair, to Erie

other than that unless into sports or the symphony (the Detroit Symphony, funded traditionally by auto moguls, is still top-tiered.

But for music no city in the English world rivals Deeeetroit - yup Motown and also Techno began here- now i suppose Techno has yet to pierce the secluded Cotswolds but it may be the top music in Britain for younger types- Techno and all its forms - Trance, Hard-Core, etc.

Flanner that was groan inducing


You'd have been better off going to Duisberg Pal. The Landschaftspark is something to behold.

Dear fellow Fodorite, why haven't you used this forum to enquire about Essen! We would have given you tips for this city.

Essen has a UNESCO World Heritage and is European Capital of Culture 2010!

Just some highlights what Essen has to offer:

- The Ruhrmuseum - a spectacular state-of-the-art historical museum in a most stunning ambiance.

- The Museum Folkwang - a splendid museum of modern art with everything that is important: Chagall, Picasso, Dali, Friedrich...

- The Villa Hügel - a gorgeous mansion of the Krupp dynasty which has been turned into a museum.

- The Phänomania - an interactive museum of senses (hard to describe what it is, but certainly very edutaining..).

- The Zollverein Mine - UNESCO World Heritage, a fine piece of Bauhaus architecture.

- The Margarethenhöhe - one of the world's most beautiful historic garden cities.

- The historical town of Kettwig, right on the lake, with its half-timbered houses.

And, and, and...

I am so sorry. I could have named fantastic restaurants and lots of sightseeing options in the vicinity of Essen.

Why haven't you posted before you went?

For starters, look here:

www.essen.de

"Flanner that was groan inducing"

Plenty more where that came from.

Who's the funkiest female singer in your neck of the woods?

Linda Randstad

It's the way we tell' em

Enough already flanner!

Ecnaton - you make me want to go back, seriously - in my next lifetime perhaps but yeh i will go back.

Hetismij - i have done Duisburg twice already

Here is what the Chicago Tribune recently wrote about Essen:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel...,1156649.story

The essen area seems fascinating but the article says little about the city itself or city center which i found so so drab. Now there seems to be a lot of energy going on and i applaud the designation of Culture Capital - but for the average tourist the city center is so so drab