Travelog for: Dieuwerke

Hello everyone! After finishing my study at the goose-university, I want to travel the world. I am way to young to get a job, so I want to get to know cool people first. Like meet bandmember and cool people I can drink cocktails with!

If you want to help me on my way, you can pm Marjolein and she will send me to you!

Love Dieuwerke

Travellist:
Olgamaus (Germany) Thank you so much!
BlackCat (Germany) Thank you!
tea_rose (England) Arrived
samsmith621 (USA)

Hi Mummy,
I arrived in Remscheid  today. I was welcomed by my first host Katja, Bokkie, Lollipop, Hueso and Lady. Katja was delighted about the nice postcard I brought to her.

Here is my first photo:



Bye
Dieuwerke

Hi Mummy,

today we took a walk in the afternoon through one of the valleys.

In the outskirts we saw this cute little house in a garden.



Behind the bushes in the foreground a creek is running. Last year they had a horrible rainfall here in August, the whole valley was overflooded then.



On the meadow in the background, behind the chicken, you can see goose. Their destination is to take an end as "Martinsgans".  (St. Martin's day-goose) The day is celebrated in the evening of November 11 in parts of Flanders and some parts of the Netherlands and most areas of Germany and Austria. Children go to houses with paper lanterns and candles, and sing songs about St. Martin in return for treats. Often, a man dressed as St. Martin rides on a horse in front of the procession. In some areas, there is a traditional goose meal. Thank God Katja is a veggie!



We rested for a while between the roots of a large tree.



Without a doubt Remscheid does not only consist of forrests, fields and beautiful valleys. Remscheid is an idustrial town.

Here you can see one of the arterial roads and the building site of the new central station.





We walked back to our home along the "Werkzeugtrasse" (Route of tools). I'll tell you more about this special lane later.



Along this route you can find many artwork made of tools. This statue is made of varnished decay from punched parts. Can you see us?





Bye
Dieuwerke

Hi Mummy,
today a new ToyVoyager arrived - Pien, he is also from the Netherlands like me.



Katja took me, Lady and Pien with her to work in the afternoon. She is working in a law firm. We had a lot of fun there and kept her from working too much successfully.

First we were sitting on the telephone



and on her files.



We found something really exciting - the photocopier! We made a photo of our backsides, but that did not look so good.



We tried it once more



and this time our photo was much better. Have a look!



Now it was time for Katja to work a few hours. We were banished onto a filing cabinet with a really good overview.



This hard work really made us tired.

Bye
Dieuwerke

Hi Mummy,
today we took a walk in another forrest. Remscheid is surrounded by forrests so there are lots of forrests I haven't seen so far. Since I saw the area arount the central station I prefer forrests.

We saw large stacks of wood. Katja told us that in January 2007 a terrible storm destroyed large parts of woodland. Even today not all the fallen trees are taken away.





I love that golden light in late summer.



We saw Schluss Burg, a medieval castle which was built in 12th century. Maybe we will visit this castle some day.



Bye
Dieuwerke

Hi Mummy,

today we visited Cologne. We went there by bus. We arrived in Cologne at 10:30 a.m.

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city. It is one of the oldest cities in Germany, having been founded by the Romans in the year 38 BC. Cologne lies on the river Rhine. The city's famous Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cologne. It is a Gothic church, started in 1248, and completed in 1880. In 1996 it was designated a World Heritage site.

Katja had a wonderful surprise for us. We met fam-united and her family in Cologne! She was also showing Cologne to a lot of happy ToyVoyagers.

Of course we started our tour at Cologne Cathedral.







We wanted to take a look inside the cathedral but there was still church services going on, so we decided to walk around and have lunch first.

We walked to the river Rhine first. The old town is close to the river. A few excursion boats were waiting for passengers.







We found the perfect place to take photos with all ToyVoyagers, both Katja's and Petra's. Have you ever seen so many ToyVoyagers all at once?





We went back into town then to walk to the restaurant we had chosen for lunch. This restaurant belongs to a brewery, Mühlen Kölsch.



Of course we had a "Kölsch" there, a special beer which is only brewed in the region of Cologne.



When we finished lunch we walked back to the cathedral. Now we could view the inside.

Cologne Cathedral is one of the world's largest churches, being the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe. Construction, with interruptions, of the gothic church began in 1248 and took until 1880 to complete – a period of more than  six hundred years. It is 144.5 metres long, 86.5 m wide and its two towers are 157 m tall.





After viewing the cathedral we went back into town again because the ladies were in need of coffee.

We found a nice cafe.



Here you can see Katja, Petra and all ToyVoyagers who visited Cologne today.



Now we had to walk to the central station. We had to get home by train, Petra and her family went home by car.

We took a last photo of the cathedral, this time even with both towers on the photo.



Here you can see the central station.





We said good-bye to all the other TVs and of course Petra and her family.

Bye
Dieuwerke

Hi Mummy,
Katja made a cocktail for me, a Tequila Sunrise!

To make a Tequila Sunrise you need

5 cl Tequila
15 cl orange juice
1 cl grenadine syrup
crushed ice for the glass
ice cubes for the shaker



You have to put ice cubes, orange juice and tequila into a shaker. Shake well, pour Tequila and juice into a glass, filled with crushed ice. Use a strainer to keep the used ice cubes from the glass.



Then you pour the grenadine syrup into the glass carefully, from the rim of the glass.



Take a drinking straw and stir carefully until the dark red syrup will give a red shade on the bottom of the glass.

Enjoy it!

I was enjoying it so loud that the other ToyVoyagers, Bokkie, Lady, Hueso, Pien and Lollipop came running into the kitchen to see what happened.



I don't know why they are all wearing such funny hats. Do you know why?

Bye
Dieuwerke

Hi Mummy,

today Katja showed us the town hall.

The town hall was built in 1906. In world war II it was nearly destroyed but rebuilt later. The tower is 48 m high!

The farmer's market is held on Wednesday and Saturday on the place in front of the town hall.

The lion on the pillar is the heraldic animal of Remscheid.







In front of the office, where Katja is working, you can find this fountain. When it is hot children like to play in it.



Bye
Dieuwerke

Hi Mummy,
today we  visited Katja’s sister. She is living in Remscheid-Lennep. Lennep was suburbanized to Remscheid in the year 1929. Lennep was founded in 12th century, receive its town charter in 1230 A.D. It’s one of the oldest towns in the region “Bergisches Land”. Its medieval city centre is mostly maintained, many houses are listed buildings.

We started a little sightseeing tour in a small park. You can see that autumn is coming.





This wall is part of the city's former fortification.



This weekend the annual city party is held, it's called "Altstadtfest". They have a flea market, live music and the shops are open even on Sunday. Unfotunately the weather was not good today.





Katja and her sister found a stand where cocktails were sold.  The proceedings of this stand will go to a commission that takes care of the city's illumination.



Katja chose the Lennep Red for herself, her sister took a Lennep Blue. Of course I tasted both of them!







Both cocktails were delicious.

Some fire engines were ready for a case of emergency.



We saw lots of cute plushy guys who were looking for a new home. We rescued three of them. Katja took a funny little red guy with her and also two cute little bears. I will show them to you later.

Later we walked through the old town. Let me show you some nice places.





Many fences are overgrown, some of them with grape-vine.





Can you see my friends sitting in the plant?

We went to the apartment of Katja's sister then. On the balcony we made a group photo with the  three new possible ToyVoyagers.



Now we are all debating about names for those three new friends.

Bye
Dieuwerke

Hi Mummy,
today the weather got better again. In the afternoon, when Katja came home from work, the sun was shining. She wanted to go outside with us but she had to pack the Teddy Bears for Threadbear first.

When the package was pasted and labeled we went to the post office first. The Teddy Bears are on their way to South Africa now!

The post office is located in one of the old districts of Remscheid, in Hasten.

Here you can find many of the old typical houses. On the left side you can see an elementary school.



Katja wanted to show us  the muncipal park. We walked along the "Route of tools" (Trasse des Werkzeugs) to get there. This is a lane for pedestrians that was built on a closed railway line. It was sponsored by local industrial companies. Most of them are metalworking industry, they make all sorts of tools.

You can find many signs and artwork of local artists along this route.

This bank is made from a gigantic screw clamp.



The next photo does not show artwork but an inscription that shows the distance to several destinations along the route.



When we left this route we had to walk straight uphill to get to the muncipal park.



I saw a bush with orange berries.



This is the observatory.



The next picture is made in the park.



In spring and summer many flowers are blooming in the park. Now there are only a few kinds of flowers blooming, these for example.



This pillar is a memorial place for citizens of Remscheid which died as soldiers in previous wars before world war I.



In the middle of the photo you can see the district where the post office is located.



Large parts of the park appear more like a forrest than a park. Here you can see that autumn is coming soon!



On our way back home we walked through another little park. Here you can find a pillar that's showing the crest of Remscheid and the names of the partner towns.



Katja's daughter cooked pasta with tuna sauce for us. We'll go to bed soon.

Bye
Dieuwerke

Hi Mummy,
Katja showed us more of the "Route of tools" today. The weather was fantastic.

When she came home from work she brought an envelope with her. Moley arrived today.

In the afternoon we went outside.

From the windows of our living room we can see a church. We wanted to see this church. However it is not possible to take a good  photo in summer. The church (Martin-Luther-church) is surrounded by large trees so we had to take a picture from a distance. This church is an evangelic church and was built in 1893 in the New Gothic style.





Then we walked to the route of tools. At a crossroad you can see these large signs. The first one is showing the crest of Remcheid and a few explanations about the route of tools, the other ones are showing brand labels and products of famous companies in Remscheid.



To give you an imagination how these signs look we took a photo of the shadows those signs make on the ground.



These pictures were originally made by a local artist who died in 1988. The graffiti were made by someone who was propably born after 1988 because this building is standing here for only three years now.



Along the route you can find abandonded factory buildings, at least some of them look as if they were abandonded. In the background you can see the church I showed you before.





This is part of the former slaughterhouse. This complex is under preservation order. Nowadays these buildings are used by different companies.



Today I can show some more artwork. We saw a bank that was made of the axis of an old water wheel and an original sleeper.





We even met the artist who made this bank and also the other one, made of a screw clamp. He asked Katja why she took a photo of the bank (it seems that this does not happen often). She explained the idea of ToyVoyagers to him, he seemed to like it.

We went home then.

Bye
Dieuwerke

Hi Mummy,
we made a fantastic trip today. Katja met her friend Erika at 10:00 a.m. The two ladies had something really special in their minds.

Today it is the "Tag des offenen Denkmals". In english it is called European Heritage Days.

European Heritage Days is a joint action of the Council of Europe and the European Commission involving all 49 signatory states of the European Cultural Convention under the motto, Europe: a common heritage. The annual programme offers opportunities to visit buildings, monuments and sites, many of which are not normally accessible to the public. It aims to widen access and foster care for architectural and environmental heritage. This years’s motto is "Archaelogy and building research".

We decided to visit an ancient mine today. In this region ore mining started in 16th century.

There were three different periods of mining: The first one was before Thirty-Years War (1618 - 1648), the second one from 1758 – 1765 and the third one in 1853. Traces of the second period are difficult to find today.

Mining stopped after the first two periods because there was no possibility for smelting in this region. Actually they had watercraft, but the owners of the lot where smelting would have been possible had no interest in building a smelting works. They even were disappropriated. During this time the slag heaps had become so large that it was impossible to smelt the iron core.

Then in 1853 there was a last effort to revive the mines. In World War I parts of the large slag heaps were assimilated.

In a wooded area a local construction engineer excavated a gallery on his own ground. He found the mouth and built a new pit. Today we were able to see the pit. Before photos of the building site were shown. The engineer startet his work in 2002 and in about two or three years the mine should be ready for visitors.

Now I will show you some photos.

Here we are on our way to the forrest where the mine is located. We are standing on a railway bridge here.



This time we walked underneath the railway track, close to our destination.



Suneshine in the forrest ...



A view from above to the pit ...



This is the emblem of the association that arranged this meeting.



This is  the entrance to the pit, hanging above is the closing.



The pit goes down 6 metres and meets the gallery then. It is revetted with concrete.



Here you can see the mouth, unfortunately one of the outside walls crashed so it was not possible to go inside.



We walked then through the forrest to Schloss Burg, an medieval castle in the neighbour town Solingen.

We reached Solingen-Unterburg. On our way through the forrest we saw many mushrooms. We had a lot of rain here last week, that makes mushrooms grow.



We had to walk downhill really steep to get there. You can see many old houses here.



Here the Burger Pretzels are made and sold. Burger Pretzels are a local speciality, they are sweet pretzels. This is the "Pretzel bakery".



This is the creek "Eschbach", it's flowing into the river Wupper in this district.



We then walked uphill to the castle. It is located above the river Wupper. Those who don't want to walk take the chair lift.



Schloss Burg, located in Burg an der Wupper (Solingen), is the largest reconstructed castle in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany and one of the most popular tourist attraction. Its early history is closely connected to the growth of the Duchy of Berg.

In the beginning of the 12th century (after 1133) count Adolf II von Berg built Schloss Burg on a mountain over the river Wupper.

In 1632 the castle was under siege  by Swedish soldiers. After the Thirty years war, in 1648, Imperial troops destroyed the fortifications of the castle including the keep, walls, and gates. In 1700, the main building was partially reconstructed and thereafter used for administrative purposes. 1849, the castle was sold to be scrapped, decayed, and became a ruin.

Today’s appearance is not exactly the original castle was. The reconstructed castle of today is a major public attraction. It also contains the Museum of the Bergische Land. The surroundings offer hiking trails to the forests and to Unterburg, that is where the village is located, at the foot of the mountain.













When we walked back downhill we took another photo. Here you can see the distance to the other part of this district.



Here we saw an ancient cementary. It was sided here in 18th century with 105 similar looking tombstones. About 50 of them are preserved until today. They are all made of a special sort of sandstone.





From here we walked to Muengsten Bridge.

We made our way to Mungsten Bridge.

Here are standing exactly underneath the bridge.



The Müngsten Bridge is the highest steel railroad bridge in Germany. The bridge is 107 metres  high and spans over the valley of the river Wupper, connecting the cities Remscheid and Solingen. Originally the bridge was named Kaiser-Wilhelm-Brücke (emperor Wilhelm bridge), to honour emperor Wilhelm I. After the end of the monarchy the bridge was named after the district between Remscheid and Solingen.

We could see the bridge from a beautiful look-out pavillon.







Can you imagine how long we were walking now? It was about 16.30 p.m. when we reached the pavillon.

Katja showed us our tour in Google Earth. Here you can see a picture of today's tour. It was about 17 km long!

today's tour

I'm sooo tired now! I will go to sleep immediately.

Bye
Dieuwerke

Hi Mummy,
today we all helped Katja to feed the pet rats. Katja is keeping 6 pet rats, they are all girls. They are fed in the evening usually. They have some fresh fruits and vegetables then and their usual rat food .

We prepared sugar corn, some peas, red grapes and cucumber for them. They also had an apricot yoghurt. They like joghurt.





The rats were eating then. They did not care about us sitting next to them.

Here Nicole and Hella are eating,




This is Karla. Nicole and Karla are quite young, they were born on April 21st and April 27th 2008.



Batida is hiding in her house. Batida is an albino rat.





The rats are cute.

Bye
Dieuwerke