After Doro left, the weather was so nice that we decided to go do some sight-seeing. Andrea made some nice bread rolls for us to have and we set off to Herten to climb a slagheap! It's been turned into a landscaped park. The locks on the “Balcony” are put there by sweethearts for everlasting love. They put the lock there and throw away the key. There’s a lot of stairs! And just when you think you've reached the top - there's more stairs!
There's a sculpture at the top which was supposed to be an observation deck, but there's something not right with it and it's prone to collapse so the area has been fenced off:
There's a great view of the whole area from here:
On one of the lower mounds, there's an obelisk/sundial:
and a man flying a kite:
and more great views while we had our bread rolls for dinner:
I'll be creating some panoramas when I get home, so wait for those!
We took the long way back for part of the way i.e. we walked around the 'mountain' top. There's wild flowers everywhere:
and some more views:
At the bottom of the slagheap was more art, in the form of crocheted sleeves for the sign posts:
We drove around to an old mine site called Project Ewald. Part of the structures is used to house a revue - there was a drag show running while we wandered around. Great music! Mostly Queen, very aptly. Most of the buildings on the site were ruins - smashed in windows etc. It was interesting to see some of the old machines and plants too and wonder what they were used for:
In amongst it all were the other type of plants: wildflowers and berries and weeds:
and reflecting pools with goldfish:
Something was going on with a lot of young people and a car that they must've been wrecking. It stank but they were photographing it like it was something special. I'm sure Donald would've gone to investigate further. :-)
One of the ruined buildings looked almost like a castle:
There was some huge concrete blocks painted blue. I think they were supposed to be art, but I'm not sure...but plants were reclaiming even that:
More old mining equipment:
It was getting dark by the time we left and we decided that I'd spend the night and we'd go to Nordkirchen Palace in the morning.
Unfortunately, the morning came with rain that just didn't want to stop, so we gave up on the idea of the palace and sat and had a leisurely breakfast and coffee before Axel took me back to Duesseldorf in his Porsche. Axel was sad that the rain stopped him going full speed (about 285kph). It was probably just as well!
Irene was out of hospital and very happy to be able to spend some time with me. There would be no travelling about with her this time. She's too short of breath and too quickly tired. Sad. But we hope she'll be better soon.
Monday and Tuesday I again did nothing much but work on my blog. It was nice to have a break from sight-seeing and a chance to catch up my blog, it being a week behind already! Tomorrow, I'm off to Berlin and Potsdam, so another day of travelling.
