To Essen

Thursday 14th April
The day dawned fine in Koblenz, but as we travelled northwards, it grew colder and the sky clouded up. It's just one hour by train to Essen, crossing the Rhine at Cologne. Once we arrived at the railway station we had to catch a bus to the hotel, the Alte Lohnhalle, part of a former coalmine.



It was the rather imposing building where the miners received their pay, (Lohn) but after the coalmine was closed eventually was bought by people who saw its potential as a reception and accommodation centre. It stands next to the last remaining tower from the Bonifacius mine. Former administration buildings have new uses also. The layout of the lohnhalle is interesting. Inside the large arched doorway is a curving staircase to the left ascending to the second level, which is build on a kind of mezzanine floor above the ground floor. The central portion is open from the ground to the vaulted ceiling, which is high above the guest area. The reception counter and dining area are under a normal ceiling further back on the ground floor and there is an extra wing with more accommodation out to one side of the building.
After making ourselves known to the receptionist, we were provided with a welcome cuppa before being shown to our room, as we were a little early and it wasn't quite ready. Once we were able to leave our bags, we went out for a short walk to find some lunch - there was a really nice cafe/bakery just around the corner - yum!
We had been surprised on our first visit (2009) to the Ruhr Gebiet, the great industrial heart of Germany, how green it was. Many of the former iron foundries and coal mines have been turned into industrial parks, the trees even growing on the roofs high above the ground and almost completely hiding some of the multi-tracked railways. So when we went for a walk in the afternoon after our arrival, at first we were a little disappointed when the streets became scruffier and the buildings rather down-at-heel. We'd reached Gelsenkirchen to the east of Essen.
As it was rather boring, Bruce decided to return by another street parallel to the one we were walking on, but instead of just going one block north, he went two, not realising that the road would start to head northwest!
The surroundings became much more pleasant, however, with plenty of treed areas breaking up the buildings. What really did surprise us was that there seemed to be no shops, just tall grey buildings!
Eventually we reached a much larger, busier road and headed in what we hoped was south. We crossed a street called Bonifacius Strasse but didn't know whether to turn left or right onto it. After going a couple more blocks, we reached a bridge over the railway line so realised we'd gone the wrong way. We tried asking some people near a small dairy but they couldn't help us. A second encouraging sign was that we'd arrived on a 170 bus route - which we knew would stop near the hotel - but it was a little difficult to decide exactly where we were on the map at the bus stop. After a bit more walking, we came within sight of the mine tower and soon found our way back to our room.
After a bit of a break we went out to the nearby shopping centre we'd discovered and had chicken doners from a Turkish takeaway, and tiny Italian ice creams from a nearby Gelato. Jeremy popped in on his way to Duisburg to meet up with Anthony and Eleanor who were staying there for the night, so we made a few plans about what to do after the wedding.