Dortmund - All Image Descriptions

On this page I publish interesting photos from Dortmund and the surroundings, every now and then. Especially for my friends from Australia and other parts of the world, most of which have never been to the Ruhrgebiet.

	Snow Man This is where my mother lives, it's in Dortmund's city (in a quarter called Kreuzviertel) too.
	Dortmund Central Station On April, 1st I traveled to my relatives in Cologne. The "U" in this photo's background belongs to the old Union Brewery and is visible from our balcony as well. Hbf stands for Hauptbahnhof: main/central railway station.
	Inter City Express Traveling by ICE is comfortable, fast and "cool" ;-) - but expensive as well.
	NRW Express The NRW-Express needs 1.5 hours for the 100 k to Cologne, but it's cheap for students: only € 3 - 6 (from Cologne/ from Dortmund) with our VRR semester ticket VRR (Rhine Ruhr Public Transport Network). Cities between Dortmund and Cologne: Bochum, Essen, Mülheim, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Leverkusen...
	Our Balcony My new (shared) flat's balcony.
	Summer of 2004 The summer doesn't want to begin, somehow... Down there we see my blue bicycle, by the way.
	View Across My Street Unfortunately it's not easy to recognise the water that's running down the tiles. But the rain was only slightly weaker than what I had witnessed last December, in Cairns.
	24th Birthday Just in time for my 24th birthday the summer began and everyone enjoyed the evening at the Westfalenpark. :-)
	Berlin by Bicycle You can see more photos, if you want.
	Swimming Pool This pool in Dortmund's suburb Wellinghofen is heated, still most people seem to believe summer was already over, after two weeks with rain on most days. But I enjoyed the swim and not having to look out for other swimmers on my lane.
	View from Hohensyburg Dortmund's suburb Hohensyburg offers a nice panoramic view on Hagen and the Sauerland region. You can find better panoramic pictures on Jens Seiler's Homepage.
	Emperor Wilhelm I This monument was inaugurated in 1902, 14 years after the Emperor's death.
	Bridge in the Forest
	Old Cranes ...no longer in operation, obviously.
	"To Our Heroes" ...such war memorials I had not expected to exist in Dortmund. The inscription reads (translated): To Our Heroes 1914 + 1918 Warrior and Territorial Force Association Deusen
	Dortmund Panorama The photo is taken from the heap in Ellinghausen. You might be able to recognise the TV Tower, if you know its shape and your computer monitor is sharp enough.
	Strictly No Trespassing Betreten strengstens verboten! Krupp Hoesch Stahl AG
	Mini Avenue It is more interesting not to stick to the path beneath the canal, when cycling to the lift-lock in Henrichenburg.
	Rowers On Sundays the canal is for sports and not for shipping. Apparently there was some kind of nation-wide competition on this day, judging from the inscription on the rower's clothes.
	Schiffshebewerk Waltrop-Henrichenburg To the left we see the old lift-lock, to the right there is the old watergate. Spending (at various occasions) several hours in the museum at and inside of the old lift-lock has been very enjoyable for me.
	Beer This is my stubby holder collection together with some German and some Australian beer. As you can see the German bottles are bigger, containing 500 ml. There is a 333 ml version as well, but these don't get refilled and are not bought very often. I liked the Australian intermediate 375 ml bottles, though. Why is it that Coopers has no Kangaroo on its bottle necks in Australia? And how can they sell Italian-made XXXX, 'brewed with genuine Australian hops'? Who wants XXXX, anyway? Or VB? I mainly like these two for their cool names.
	Railways This photo was taken on a bridge not far from the Central Station.
	Sowjet Memorial This memorial stood at the western entrance of the main cemetery, according to the information board nearby.
	War Graves Seeing these graves and memorials makes me sad and mad, the same way that watching movies like Paths of Glory makes me feel. Sad for the victims and mad at all Masters of War.
	Information Board This board tells us that there are registered 11,710 deaths of war burried on 44 cemeteries in Dortmund, most of them from World War 2. About half of them were German. The biggest portion of the other half were Soviet POWs who had to work in camps for the heavy industries during the Nazi rule of Dortmund. The text ends with a quotation of Albert Einstein: Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
	Child Grave Hannelore, born in 1931, two years before Hitler became the “leader” of Germany, apparently also died in WW2...
	War Memorial OUR SACRIFICE IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY: “PEACE” 1939 - 1945 According to an article in one of our local newspapers from 12th March of 2005 Allied/ British bombers delivered 4851 tons of bombs to Dortmund in that same night in 1945 - more than any other European city ever received in a single attack. Trapped: Surrender or Perish/Annihilation - people from Dortmund would well have understood that thread on a WW2 leaflet by then...
	Playground I'm living very close to this playground, in one of the nice pre-ww2 buildings where the floors are still higher.
	Container Terminal Dortmund's harbour had it's centenary a few years ago. This winter it was not could enough for shipping activity to “freeze”.
	At the Dortmund-Ems Canal
	Hafen B “Hafen B” (Harbour B) is the name of this part of Dortmund's harbour.
	Winter Sun at the Canal
	City Center Skyline
	Gravel and Scrap Metal
	Steinerner Turm In the Middle Ages the Steinerner Turm (Stony Tower) was a watchtower approximately one kilometer away from the fortified town of Dortmund. In the background the TV tower “Florian” and the chic new metro station “Westfalenhallen” are visible. When taking this picture I stood in the entrance area of Halle 1.
	Different anders - Wir - jetzt - zweifeln (different - We - now - doubt) These four words are spread over buildings on Campus Nord (the northern campus) of Dortmund University. In a different order (and adding some English inflexions) one could read: Now we're doubting differently.
	My Road Bike Here the machine (Koga Miyata) is standing at the Uni's Martin-Schmeißer Place.
	Permanently Under Construcion Probably I won't live to experience a semester at uni without a major construction site somewhere on campus (this sign reads “Entrance construction site main mensa”, with a Mensa being a kind of cafeteria or dining hall, the place where a lot of students get their warm midday meal, usually their main meal of the day, as in Germany we don't normally have a big dinner in the evening the way people in English-speaking cultures make it).
	Möllerstraße Unfortunately I have to use this “wonderful” bike path frequently.
	Canvassing “When I'll be grown up one day I'll become... nuffin!!” The liberal party wants more jobs for the youth (as usual by reducing taxes, and sacrificing the environment and worker's rights, I suppose) but unknowingly (I don't think they know it) they're also kind of quoting from The War Game, a tv film that is set in a British City after a nuclear attack. Yeah, high unemployment is bad and winters here are unpleasant, with all the “dead” trees (for Australians that is how this must look) and the constantly cloudy sky, but still our situation is not remotely as bad as it was for the people in that film's scenario.
	DO-Groppenbruch The small but friendly suburb of Groppenbruch, right by the canal.
	Two Wild Geese ...or are the swans already? This small lake is Brunosee in Do-Brüninghausen (do not confuse with Do-Brünninghausen).
	Blooming Trees ...in Rombergpark botanical gardens.
	Dragonslayer II This memorial is very similar to one in DO-Deusen, but the names from World War 2 make it even worse... probably it can only stand like that because people from the countryside (this is Menden/Sauerland) are more conservatory/ patriotic. Equaling soldiers who supported a criminal war and a massive genocide to a martyr seems absurd... but at least they ended similar to the George in this dragon cartoon.
	Up the Ruhr from Schwerte With my road bike and a tail wind I can make a good speed on this trail.
	Construction Site at Uni
	Universitätsstraße Something bigger was planned here...
	Autobahn Ahead ...but this is how the wide 'University Street' ends.
	Cyclists Dismount
	Morning Sun
	Spring
	Gaststätte Wolf
	Graffiti
	Sunderweg 3
	Benno is Tanning
	Christmas Feelings ...just like my Christmas 2003!
	New Haircut
	Bicycle Theft
	Rally in Essen...
	...Against Tuition Fees! Don't Gamble With Education! Our social-democrat/ green ministry of education introduced so-called “long-term tuition fees” just a couple of years ago. This has paved the way for the new christian democratic/ liberal government to introduce general tuition fees immidiately after having been elected in the recent Landtagswahlen (~ state elections). More photos are in a separate Gallery!
	Bike Ride along the Rhine Just like last year I spend much of my summer holiday pedaling. From this ride I created a gallery with 68 pictures.
	Turkish Dortmund This is Mallinckrodtstraße in Dortmund, near the underground station Brunnenstraße. Many Turkish people obviously like showing their national flag.
	Colors of Autumn
	German Allotments These small Gardens are quite popular in Dortmund, there are 120,000 of these allotments in NRW, (our state with its 18 mio inhabitants).
	Jamaican Dortmund Indeed in 1980 Bob Marley gave a concert in Dortmund - where they had to heat up the concert hall to Jamaican temperatures.
	Early Snow Exceptional amounts of snow in this November night.
	Benno’s Blood Bowl Cup My flatmate won Benno's Blood Bowl Cup and I took this photo of the award ceremony (on which I had to work a little with the GIMP's new SIOX tool, which was made by FU Berlin's computer science department).
	Hohensyburg I love cycling up to this ruin to enjoy the view. Another photo of this tower can now be found in the Wikimedia Commons archive.
	Schützenstraße An unusual view on this lively street in Dortmund's north.
	Berlin Again ETERNAL GLORY TO HEROES WHO FELL IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE GERMAN FASCIST INVADERS FOR THE FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE OF THE SOVIET UNION In Berlin's centre, at the Straße des 17. Juni, near Reichstagsgebäude (federal parliament) and Brandenburger Tor, one finds this monument for the thousands of Soviet soldiers, wo died in the war against Nazi Germany. The irony of history: Hitler had plans of building a victory monument from this very same marble (according to an information board).
	At the University jetzt - zweifeln - Wir - anders
	Haus Dellwig Haus Dellwig is a pretty little castle in Dortmund's suburb Lütgendortmund.
	doubt zweifeln - Wir - jetzt - anders?
	University Panorama I've taken this picture from the high “Math Tower”. The massive building in the centre is the university library. In the distance one can see the stadium and other major buildings.
	We Wir - zweifeln - jetzt - anders!
	Good Times Again Together we have had so many great experiences and adventures Down Under... and now my Canadian friend Gurpreet visited me in Dortmund for about a week.
	Refreshment Shack A typical store for the Ruhr Area.
	Wesel Datteln Canal On our Trip to Haltern am See, where we stayed one night, we cycled along the canals a lot.
	Bike Holiday 2006 On the day of Gurpreets departure the next visitor arrived, from Australia this time, and we also went on a bike ride.
	Heading to Münster Many will remember August 2006 in Germany as a month of extremely bad weather, but on our three-day ride we only got wet from the rain once, on the last day, already nearly back home. The rest of the time the weather was actually quite pleasant, almost perfect for cycling and camping.
	Steam Locomotive An exceptional sight at the central station: according to Wikipedia the last trains with steam engines in (the Federal Republic / Western) Germany were taken out of regular service in 1977, and such special trains are rare.
	Puffing Away
	Bahn Advertising This more than 13 year old advertising in an underground station in a suburb of Dortmund reads: There are a few corners in Switzerland that you do not reach with the EuroCity. Future Organisation / The German Railways
	View From a Bridge The Street in the upper right corner of this picture is the Leierweg (next picture).
	View from Leierweg The old four lane bridge in the background is soon going to be replaced by a new six lane bridge.
	Westpark Damage from windstorm “Kyrill”.
	More Summer Sun So there will be less shade in this park next summer... Visible in the background: houses from Möllerstraße.
	Paulinenstraße My new home... not this construction site, of course, but this is my street, since September 2006. The solid building on the left (which is not my home either) supposedly once was a home for unmarried workers and civil servants (more information in German).
	Paulinenstraße 42 This is where I live!
	Isn’t it ironic? Some years ago I made an Anti-SUV Page (in German), and now this monster of a car routinely parks right in front of my door.
	ABOLISH CARS This wall is on my way to uni. By the way: the reflection that lets my bike throw a shadow is caused by a car... they park everywhere.
	A Dream Came True My street, (almost) car-free. All of a sudden it no longer is that narrow.
	Destruction Why are they tearing down this pretty building? Just to have more space for another supermarket?
	Ex-Cosmotopia This used to be one of Dortmund's best clubs.
	Rubbish and Ads Now that the stupid ad for this 'foreign' beer (not from this state) is in my picture I'd like to point to an interesting discrepancy with prior advertising (from Australia).
	XXL Graffiti What is this? An advertisement? For a new religion? Translation of the German text: OVERCOME YOUR SCEPTICISM, DISCARD YOUR WRONG CONFESSIONS, FORGET YOUR MISTRUST AND BELIEVE ONLY IN ME.
	No Surprising News “Wow” was my first thought, when I saw the graffiti on this bridge. It looks really professional, although, like most graffiti, it would probably have been created at night. So here pops up an interesting commonality between Dortmund and Melbourne.
	Bridge Ruins
	Idyll in Hörde The nice old bridge, the old furnace in the background... the morning in Dortmund-Hörde can be that pretty.
	Summer by the Lake A relaxed late summer day by the Hengsteysee in Dortmund's south.
	Berlin is alive
	Dortmund much more! ...but ordinary billboards are not too popular any more. Ads now have to shine and move.
	Erholung This bus stop near Dortmund is called recovery.
	Hafenamt Dortmund's harbour administration.
	Dortmunder U The old brewery building is Dortmund's symbol for being part of RUHR.2010, the European Capital of Culture 2010.
	Althoffstraße
	Bikes in the snow
	Kokerei Hansa New Year's Day on an old coke plant.
	RUHR.2010
	Buying water With an unusual amount of snow for more than a week I had to find alternatives to my bicycle for transporting heavy goods.
	Uncommon winter sports
	Paulinenstraße 2010 This time the number does not indicate the address, but the year! Three years earlier, before the renovation, “my” house still looked very different.
	Still Life Ruhrschnellweg For one full day the A40, one of the busiest Freeways in Germany, was populated by clubs and walkers on the one side, and everything that has got wheels, but no motor, on the other side. On the official website there are many nice pictures from the diffent cities and also from above.
	Juggling on the central reserve On other days getting here would be very difficult and dangerous, and being here would not be pleasant at all.
	30th anniversary Since 2001 I celebrated almost all of my anniversaries in one of Dortmund's parks. First at the Rombergpark, mostly at the Westfalenpark, and here once again at the Fredenbaum.
	Emscher transformation From the open sewer back to the river. Because of its location the Ruhr Area should better be called “Emscher Area”, I once heard... in any case the region gains a lot from this transformation.
	Critical Mass Bike Ride Having heard of this kind of protest event in Australia and in Hamburg I was excited to now experience a Critical Mass Bike Ride in Dortmund! On this particularly nice day someone shot a little film, in which I'm easy to recognise with my orange t-shirt from Melbourne.
	Record Snow Winter 2010/2011 brought more snow to central Europe than any other winter since the early 1980s. Allegedly this used to be normal, but for a lot of people, including myself, it was quite a novel experience...
	Roseggerstraße One of the two axes through Dortmund's pretty Althoffblock.
	Danger of avalanches Because of the extraordinary amount of snow one was in danger of being buried by masses of snow that suddenly dispatch from a house's roof. In several places (like here in the Heinrichstraße) footpaths were closed to direct pedestrians to the saver other side of the street, or to the street itself. Several “roof avalanches” descended with a loud rumble right in front of my door while I sat in my room.
	“Flying Pictures” This former brewery building was transformed to a museum and cultural centre. The entertaining films right underneath the golden “U” were developed specifically for this unconventional “screen” and are still on display after 2010, when Dortmund was part of the Cultural Capital of Europe.
	Killer Icicles The temperature’s alternating around the freezing point added frightening giant icicles to the danger of roof avalanches. The newspapers wrote about the house owners’ duty to remove these, but nothing was reported on actual icicle casualties.
	Bike Path Blockade Bike paths were not freed from snow, in Dortmund, but on the contrary used to deposit the snow that was removed from the streets. In Nijmegen the picture was very different: all major bike paths were timely cleared and sprinkled with salt.
	Mouse & Cat After two years in exile I was finally back to Dortmund - at first at a friend's place with two cats.
	Fredenbaum The Fredenbaum Park in winter, for a change.
	Ice! From winter 2011 directly into winter 2013 - particularly interesting for people from the no ice regions, I guess.
	Warehouse at the Phoenix Lake. Soon there will be apartments inside this building.
	Borsigplatz 'Echte Liebe' (real love) is what the local football club now advertises.
	Hörde Viaduct 2013 Six years after my first picture of this building I now moved to Hörde myself.
	Hörde Castle Interestingly I now live in a town within the city (whereas the part of the city I used to live in, the Kreuzviertel, is called a “village within the city”).
	Spring 2013 Picture taken from out of my new flat's window, in Hörde.