Travel with Kevin and Ruth: Leg number one of our trip back to Ottawa

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Leg number one of our trip back to Ottawa

Pretty hectic morning yesterday as we felt a bit rushed trying to make the 12:20pm train from Dulmen.

And we did actually make it to the train station in time, but only because our motorhome dealer offered to drive us. Normally we walk because it's only about twenty minutes away.

And then when we got to the train station, we couldn't get the ticket machine to work, and had to buy the tickets from a third party reseller online. Which got us the tickets, but by the time we had it all sorted out, we missed that train and had to wait for the next one anyhow! Oh well... we sat and had our lunch.

Goodbye Max!

Ruth, with all of our worldly belongings!

Now that Max is gone, what we have with us is virtually everything we own. Two carry on bags, and two small backpacks. The only items of any real value are our laptops, the camera, and the cell phone.

Feels kind of odd not to have any car keys in my pocket. It's not very often over the last 45 years that we haven't owned a vehicle of some kind.

We were about 45 minutes on the train from Dulmen to Dortmund where we had a twenty minute wait to change trains to Dusseldorf. Then about an hour from Dortmund to Dusseldorf.

Total of €50.30 ($74 CAD, $55 USD) for all the trains for the two of us.

Dusseldorf Train Station.

Then a 20 minute walk to the Hotel Rubin in Dusseldorf. It was €80 for the hotel which is actually quite a reasonable price. Considering it was at the low end of the pricing scale, the reviews were quite positive.

The check in girl was really friendly, and the place was very clean. Wouldn't hesitate to stay there again.

Totally suitable for a one night stay.

Felt great to have a nice hot shower.

Dusseldorf is not really what you would call a tourist town. There's not a lot to see, but what I did read about was the interesting architecture down by the waterfront area on the River Rhine. So we walked over there in the evening.

Typical Dusseldorf buildings.

A big church.

Our first glimpse of the Rhine Tower.

The harbour area at the Rhine River in Dusseldorf was really rundown thirty years ago. When they started refurbishing the area, they pretty much gave the builders and architects free reign as far as what they wanted to build. So there are some really interesting structures.