Architecture is varied, but there is not much of the extremely modern glass around. Brickwork dominates and it feels that even new buildings are trying to fit in. The main exception is the area around the Rhine Towner, a needle standing tall and alone on the riverside and the various modernist buildings nearby.

The additional exception is the new build shopping plaza outside old town, which is exactly the kind modern glass structure you find everywhere. Walking through, past H&M and Boots you could be anywhere.

Incredibly cash is still king here, I was rarely able to pay by card. It was like stepping back in time.

Day 1: 

This is the shortest trip I have done so far, leaving after work on a Friday and flying back on a Sunday, making Saturday my only full day in the city.

I took an Uber from work, checked in quickly as there was almost no one at customs and grabbed a burger for dinner. I asked for an alcohol free Staropramen, but after my second I was fairly confident that they had not heard me properly. I was attempting to only drink one night a week and having been out with a friend for post-climbing beers, I had intended not to drink on this trip. That having failed I had a glass of wine on the plane but nothing else that evening.

The flight was short, less than an hour and a half and I entertained myself by playing Skyrim. A massive advantage to my Patagonia body warmer I discovered is that by removing the edge controllers the screen fits in the inside pocket so no hassle getting it out of the bag whilst boarding.

Having disembarked, my first interaction was with a rude German demanding to know if i was standing or moving when we got in each others way…

Unusually, especially as I arrived at 10pm, I took public transport, the S11, to my hotel. It was a very easy four stops and very quick. Looking back, i definitely bought the wrong ticket at €45, but it was late and I converted it from SEK to pounds and so thought it was a reasonable £4. My hotel was just by the station and so the whole trip was faster than a cab would have been.

Hotel Windsor is a faux-english building with a german welcoming committee. But overall, whilst a bit ‘Stratford-upon-Avon” it is nice, clean and central.

I used my wifi SD card for the first time in practice, with some technical challenges before being able to share on Instagram, a photo of some impressive tagging on the train line.

I plugged everything in to charge and went to bed just over an hour haver landing to be ready for a hopefully busy day!

Day 2: 

With a fairly early night, I was also up fairly early. As part of my new health kick, I am trying to keep my bed and wakeup times fairly consistent.

I was out and exploring by 9:30, looking for some breakfast whilst I walked past a couple of cafes near the hotel, I decided to get a bit more central before settling in. This was a mistake as it took me half an hour to find somewhere else and I ended up with a traditional German breakfast of bread, honey and jam. Filing but not very exciting.

I then headed to the riverside and walked along the front for a time. I could see the Rhine Tower in on direction and headed north to the Schlossturm (Maritime) museum. Housed in a tower, all that remains of a palace/fortress, it is a cheap, but interesting explanation of the history of shipping on the Rhine. Set over four floors, each taking up most of the tower, there are some interesting elements, a setup allowing you to virtually pilot a boat and a container ship, and a mini ‘cinema’ using three projectors to tell the towers tale.

The top floor is a cafe, which would have been a nice place to stop but was hosting a function so was unavailable.

My next stop was the K20 Kunstsammlung, a massive modern art museum. Clean, curved lines and a white futuristic atmosphere define the building and it is split between the current temporary exhibition of Carmen Herrera, a Cuban born American artist, still painting at 100 years old. Her works are characterised by very simple geometric shapes, but set in such way they they trick the eye. Other than a monochrome period, most are black or white and a bold alternative colour. Considering their apparent simplicity, they are striking, perhaps partly because whilst they initially appear symmetrical, they are not.

The rest of the museum is the permanent collection and has a wide range. A large selection of Klee, but also Jackson Pollack, Andy Warhol, and naturally a few pieces of my companion on these city tours, Pablo Picasso. They also had a few pieces from Salvador Dali and one remarkable work in pencil by Sol Lewitt called Scribbles, one ra meter square, hand drawn with almost every spot detailed other than a lightening at the top the gives the impression of a reflection until you really look. There is even a Kandinsky or two at the museum, as well as a lot of great works of artists I did not recognise. I stopped for coffee in the museum cafe, which has been designed as at art piece itself by Joap van Lieshout, with matching colours and sculpted tables and chairs and offers views of the Andreaskirche opposite.

By this point, it was time to find lunch, walking past the costumed groups out relatively early for the Carnival, I found a German restaurant and had a respectable Torola Steak with potatoes. Behind me to Latvian developers were talking about agile methodology and I had to restrain myself from joining in.

Full of steak, cheese, potatoes and (fake) beer, I headed north along the Rhine to the Kunst Palas, a hue n snapped building housing a modern art gallery, a glass museum and a more traditional art museum.

The modern art museum was first and has a reasonable collection over three floors. Noting especially stands out but it is still a worthy collection.

The glass museum is another story. There are some quite remarkable pieces of work showcasing how variable glass is as a medium. Additionally there are examples from early history and some fine pieces from Islamic and Christian medieval trading.

There is also a goat. Made of shards of glass, standing alone and forever untouchable in the corner…

The final section of the museum is perhaps the largest and describes itself as five museums in one. With a small section of technology in art, a series of ceiling mounted televisions produces a while. I may have hit the message squarely on the head as I initially ignored the work as I was on my phone.

There is a reasonable collection of religious art, though I do find that very ‘same-y’ as strict rules and expectations keeping painters over may hears to similar subjects and similar styles.

The final area of the museum is also the only one which dos not offer english translations for anything and it discusses the ‘depraved art’ movement. The method used by the Nazi’s to confiscate art and imprison artists. Whether the lack of translation was deliberate or accidental the shame still runs deep in Germany for the horrors of World War II.

I had a drink in the cafe whilst researching restaurants for dinner, but I had one last museum to do before eating. the NRW Forum of Art, and specifically photography. Open late, I had left it to last deliberately.

Stopping by the water to take a few sunset pictures, including the Rhine Tower, I swing back around past the tent village in one of the museum outdoor alcoves of students avoiding hotel bills for the Carnival and discovered the museum was closed to allow for new exhibits to be fitted…

Throughly stymied, as every other option I checked was closed and the cinema’s films are all dubbed in German, I walked south along the river talking pictures of sunset moving to night and getting more and more rowdy carnival goes around me.

Figuring I would never get food near the Carnival, I headed vaguely east towards my hotel an past the art museum I visited first. On a whim, as i had missed out on going in Oslo, i checked the Opera for tickets. I’d previously checked the concert hall, but nothing was playing.

Turns out Puccini’s Madama Butterfly was playing that evening and tickets were available. I bought a mid-priced one and settled in at a standing table at the bar to refresh my memory on the plot and songs as it was performed in the native Italian and the subtitles were in German.

I realised I would have no chance for a real dinner, with the Opera offering only a small open sandwich selection. (Of which I partook at intermission of an excellent roast beef). But ultimately, after the stake, cheese and potatoes that was lunch and a pile of bread for breakfast I was in a good state calorie wise to miss a full dinner.

The performance was excellent, Butterfly was superb, though not the delicate flower you expect, and even not knowing the language it was easy to follow the plot. 

They even had a very young boy playing the son, who hit his marks perfectly.

The scenery was great and clever use was made of a donut shaped turntable that allowed cycling in props whilst keeping main pieces in place. The columns in act one, representing the American Embassy , took off like rockets, leaving rubble behind as a bomb sounded cutting to black and ending act 1. Act 2 opened in a wasteland where Butterfly had fashioned a tent from the American flag. 

My only issue was butterfly’s confident and capability made it harder to empathise with her heartbreak and made her ultimate suicide come a little from nowhere. She came across as too together for that, but that i likely due to not being able to follow the text.

Once done, walked back to the hotel, not a single convenience store on route for snack and only bars and a McDonalds open otherwise. I resisted and resolved to have a healthy breakfast instead.

Day 3: 

Something of a lie in, as I knew nothing opened until 11am. (How foolish and naive I sound looking back) and so checked out at 10 and walked down to a nearby cafe that I had passed the day before for some breakfast.

I was seated (as most German cafe’s seem to be table service) by one of several waitresses who were in the spirit of Karnival in evil horns and sparkly freckles. I should have taken the hint that maybe Sunday was a bigger deal. Breakfast was a fair of bread rolls, with scrambled eggs, cheese, ham and salami. Filling though heavy.

I headed towards my destination, though, I was momentarily distracted by the Karnival lining the street, even at 10:30 the beers were on and students were maxing juice with shot-bottles wit that tasteless care that only the young and stupid can manage.

I found the museum easily enough, but it was very clearly closed. A bit of a chat with two older German ladies there for the museum as well confirmed to me it was closed for the Karnival, likely to avoid trouble.

“No matter, the ceramics and pottery museum is just around the corner”, I thought, "that will be fine.”

Also closed.

The film museum adjacent. Closed as well. It seems the museums take the chance on a Karnival Sunday to close. I was very fortunate the same did not occur on the Saturday or I would have had a very uneventful trip!

Giving up on finding a museum in the town that was open at this point, I headed down to the Rhein embankment to find KIT, or Kunst In Tunnel, or Art in a tunnel for the english.

Initially looking closed, it was just very tinted windows, so I stopped at the cafe on top of the tunes as I was well ahead of schedule for getting here and fancied a coffee.

It turned out, only the cafe was open, the KIT was closed for the day as well. At this point, I began to wonder if having been out at the Carnival the night before, everything was closed due to a shared hanger rather than protecting the venues!

About to leave and the heavens opened, even the waitress suggested I stay for another coffee rather than try going out in the downpour…

Half an hour later and it was safe to leave, I wen under one of the main bridges across the Rhein, past the Apollo variety venue and walked on past the Rhein Tower to see the Landtag Nordrhein-Westfalen, the local parliament. A cool structure of interlocking circles, more obvious from above. Also very visible is a glass shard, forming an impressive set of government offices.

I then stopped for photos outside Near Zollhof, a mixed used pair of buddings, one white and one chrome built by Frank Gehry in 1999. With the sun peeking out from behind a could, you got a small impression of how dramatic the buildings would be in bright sun.

It was finally time for the Rhein Tower and it was open! At least the cafe/bar was open, m168. The restaurant I had planned to have lunch in one floor up at 172 meters was, of course, closed for refurbishment. The lift moves up very quickly though without much sense of movement. About half way, though your ears pop.

That aside, views around the city are impressive, though the location of some of the ceiling lights causes reflections on the windows which is unfortunate. I managed to get some photos before the rain came back in and the clouds obscured everything.

Having had a bit if a disappointing day, I decided to treat myself to lunch and went to Rocca Im Gehry’s Argentinian steak house in Neur Zollhof. Taking up about half the ground floor, it could seat far more than the handful of us in there for a late lunch on a Sunday.

As you would expect, dark wood and leather dominate the decor and a bull’s head in brass covers one wall. The steak was excellent and by Scandinavian standards really quite reasonably priced. Accompanying it was a non-alcoholic wheat beer (Weiss) which was, to me, almost indistinguishable from the real thing.

With a late lunch done, I walked down to the S11 station where google provided better information than the ticket machine on the easiest way to get to the airport. Fifteen minutes on the train to the airport, I spent more time going through customs than travelling, though I was selected for a pat down and for my camera gear to be scanned.

A short explore and I settled into Starbucks with a hot chocolate for an hour before boarding.