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Dusseldorf: Into the heart of a German summer

Our first foray into Dusseldorf and its surrounds yields a magical fun fair, Pokemon and beer – lots of it.

When I touched down on German soil, I suddenly found that I was very important. My plane’s arrival was heralded by no less than a water canon salute. Waving aside the stewardesses trilling, “More champagne, Ms Seah?”, I leaned away from the window so that the airport staff lining the runway and aiming their smartphones at my plane would not be able to capture a photo of me clear enough to sell to the evening tabloids.

Then I realised it was not me they were taking photos of; it was my aircraft. I was on Singapore Airlines’ inaugural flight to Dusseldorf, a thrice-weekly route the airline has just opened up. The plane also happened to be the brand new Airbus A350-900, which has fancy features such as cabin air that is less dry, and a Companion App with which you can control the entertainment systems on your phone. No wonder all of the airport’s aviation enthusiasts had come to gawk.

So, I wasn’t a celebrity — but I had definitely made history, being on the first-ever Singapore Airlines plane to land in Dusseldorf. Thankfully, the laborious part was behind me, so I moved on to my next task: Exploring uncharted Dusseldorf, the capital of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. “What is in Dusseldorf?” asked all my friends who had heard I was going to be there (except for actor Chua Enlai, who said, “Buy Rimowa”). Well, it was my job to find out.

DISCOVERING DUSSELDORF

Dusseldorf, as it turns out, is the place to be at the moment. It is not just generating a buzz with Singapore Airlines; it has also attracted Singaporean celebrity chef Justin Quek, who, from September to November, will be helming a pop-up restaurant in the upscale Breidenbacher Hof, a Capella hotel. He’ll be serving up his brand of Franco-Asian fusion cuisine, bringing a taste of Singapore to Dusseldorfers.

The city itself is a very chill one, with a charming old town and market square, a well-developed arts scene and wide-open spaces — except for this one bridge over the Konigsallee canal that is currently thronged with Pokemon hunters. The Konigsallee, Dusseldorf’s luxury shopping street, is lined with flashy cars and supermodels. It is apparently where all the rich people in Germany come to flaunt their wealth. And to catch Pokemon.

Dusseldorf is a land flowing not just with the proverbial milk and honey — it is also flowing with a dark beer called Altbier. Altbier glasses are like magic porridge pots. They are tiny — so that the beer remains cold longer — and bottomless. If you don’t indicate that you have had your fill by placing your coaster on top of your glass, you’ll find that, thanks to industrious servers, your cup always runneth over, sort of like those disposable plastic cups of water by the side of a dentist’s chair. To keep track of how many beers you’ve racked up, the servers make marks on your coaster — and there is a virtual coaster app so you can keep count, too.

When the booze flows, so do the festivities. I was there just in time to catch the last weekend of the Rheinkirmes, Dusseldorf’s annual mega fun fair known in English as the Largest Fair On The Rhine. The occasion was celebrated with more than €100,000 (S$151,000) worth of fireworks over the Rhine river, lasting a good 25 minutes; it seemed the entire population had turned out to sit along the river’s banks and spend their evening with friends, drinks and pyrotechnics.

The Kirmes fair is a mesmerising 165,000sqm of amusement park rides, halls of mirrors, haunted houses, confectionery stalls and beer stops. After dusk, it is a fairy-lit wonderland of old-school carousels, bumper cars, roller coasters and Ferris wheels that enchants you into feeling transported in time — to a soft-focus, sepia-tinted era in which things were simpler, fries with mayonnaise tasted better and people amused themselves by winning embarrassingly large stuffed animals for their girlfriends instead of stalking Snorlaxes on their phones.

 

DAY TRIPPING

From Dusseldorf, we made an easy hour-long drive to Cologne to see the famous cathedral, which gets six million visitors every year. The breathtaking Gothic spires of the Unesco World Heritage building, which took 632 years to construct, survived 14 bombs in the war and was the only structure in the vicinity still standing after the Allied air raids, making it a testament to faith, art, the human spirit, and the common sense of pilots who needed it as a landmark.

On a far less sacred note, Dusseldorf and Cologne are pretty much two German frat boys who have a famously epic rivalry over — what else? — beer. In Cologne, the house brew is a light beer called Kolsch. I was warned repeatedly not to order Altbier in Cologne or I would rue the day I did. So, naturally, during lunch at Peter’s Brauhaus, I wanted to do exactly that — just to see, in the interest of science, what would happen. But I was distracted by their life-changing apple strudel — and anyway, the Kolsch turned out to be just as yummy, which is why the Dusseldorf-Cologne beer wars will probably continue into perpetuity.

Another day trip we made was to the bright little holiday town of Rudesheim am Rhein. Located in the heart of Germany’s wine making region, a Unesco World Heritage site, it is where you can enjoy a quaint small-town experience on the Rhine river, enhanced by dirt-cheap Riesling. This explains its popularity with both German and international tourists.

We cruised up the river, with beautiful views on either side, to Burg Rheinstein, a gorgeous medieval castle built in the early 1300s. From the tallest turret, you can pretend to catapult cows at your mortal enemies. Back at the town centre, we took an idyllic old-school cable-car ride up to the Niederwald Monument, a sculpture commemorating the unification of Germany, from which you get a breathtaking panoramic view of the river and the vineyards on its banks.

From Rudesheim am Rhein we continued on to Frankfurt, which is two-and-a-half-hours away from Dusseldorf by road. Frankfurt, as most people know, is a mix of steel skyscrapers and half-timbered historical buildings. But I also learned that, apart from being the birthplace of the dragons from Game Of Thrones, one of Frankfurt’s other claims to fame is something named, suspiciously, “green sauce”. Seriously, it’s a thing — there is even an annual Green Sauce Festival and a Green Sauce monument in Frankfurt-Oberrad. Made from a blend of seven herbs, sour cream and boiled egg white, the sauce is apparently a dish in its own right, although it is served with everything from boiled eggs to Frankfurter Schnitzel to bread. Be sure to have it with the apple wine that is also a Frankfurt speciality, and, according to a local resident I spoke to, “10 out of 10 people don’t like”.

That’s Germany for you: Unapologetic; welcoming; full of history yet forward-looking; laid-back yet edgy; and flowing with more alcohol than you could possibly want. My electronic coaster app cannot be wrong.

 

Singapore Airlines flies directly to Dusseldorf three times a week.

This trip was made possible by Singapore Airlines.

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