Vacations in Düsseldorf at September 2016
I have visited Düsseldorf twice in the past, in April 2016 and in May 2013.
But nevertheless, I went there again from September 3 to Sept 7, 2016. ;)
I went there with my boyfried and a friend by car.
The reason for our second visit to Düsseldorf was that I wanted to visit the vintage event "Flaneur Bonn" and our friend wanted to attend a speech about snow leopards at zoo Krefeld.
This blog post is a little bit long and picture heavy, so here is a summary:
September 3, 2016 (Saturday) journey there, zoo Neunkirchen September 4, 2016 (Sunday) Cologne Cathedral, vintage event, meetup with SweetManiac September 5, 2016 (Monday) Aachen with Usai, Naniwa sushi restaurant September 6, 2016 (Tuesday) zoos in Wuppertal and Gelsenkirchen September 7, 2016 (Wednesday) journey home
Saturday, September 3, 2016: journey there, zoo Neunkirchen
Our journey to Düsseldorf started in the morning. Our friend picked up my boyfriend and me from my boyfriend's home by car.
We had decided to visit the zoo Neunkirchen on our way to Düsseldorf because it had snow leopards that our friend wanted to see. The zoo does not have red panda, but many different kind of birds. ;)
The entrance fee was 9,50 €.
We went to the snow leopards first (around 13:50) and the keeper was just carrying the second baby twin snow leopard away. Noooo! The twins are only outside in the morning and afterwards stay inside with their mother. But we could take pictures of the father:
Next, we ate some food and cake from a food stall for lunch.
Then we went to see the "birds of prey demonstration" (Flugschau) at 15:30. The birds were already sitting on their stands, so we could have a look at them.
During the demonstration, details of some of the birds were explained and the birds flew around.
We ate one more cake: it was for free because the food stall was already closing (at 17:00).
Then we continued our way to Düsseldorf and checked in at the hotel, the City-Hotel Düsseldorf . We chose this hotel because we liked it during our first stay in May 2013, it is located close to central station, a ticket for public transport is included for free and the price was good. But this time, the service was not as good as during our first stay:
There was a problem with the online reservation when we arrived, the concierge gave the big room to our friend and the small room to my boyfriend and me, the air condition did not work in the beginning and the room service forgot to restock our toilet paper on one day.
But on the other hand, breakfast was included in the price in the end, even if our reservation was without breakfast. ;)
Sunday, September 4, 2016: Cologne Cathedral, vintage event, meetup with SweetManiac
My boyfriend and me went by train from Düsseldorf to Cologne. We visited its church Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) and the its treasures in the nearby museum (Domschatzkammer). The entrance for the museum was 6 €; there was no entrance fee for the church.
Impressions from the museum:
Inside the church:
Afterwards, my boyfriend and me went by public transport from Cologne to the youth hotel Base Camp in Bonn to attend the vintage event "Flaneur Bonn". I already wrote a blog post about it, therefore I will only show you my outfit: ;)
For the evening, I had arranged a meetup with my lolita friend SweetManiac in Cologne. ;)
We went to the burger restaurant "bonfrit.de (5,90 € burger and 3,50 € french fries) and afterwards to the nearby ice cream parlor Eiscafé Orchidea. It was really nice to meet her again, and the food was delicious!
Monday, September 5, 2016: Aachen with Usai, Naniwa sushi restaurant
We spent the whole day in Aachen with my lolita friend Usai. She was so kind to take one day off from work to show us the town Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), and she was a great guide!
We left the car at a public parking garage (13 € for 6 hours), walked through the city and visited the Aachen cathedral.
There is a little model of the building outside of the cathedral:
The entrance to the cathedral is free. There are guided tours that cost money, but we did not attend one.
I paid around 1 € to be allowed to take pictures inside the cathedral.
The cathedral's website contains a 3D view of the inside of the cathedral.
We also visited the museum about Aachen cathedral, called Aachen Cathedral Treasury (Domschatzkammer). The entrance fee was 5 €, I think.
As a souvenir, I bought a magnet for the fridge from the souvenir shop because it had a mouse mosaic!
And we bought one package of Aachener printen from the Alois Roderburg Printenhaus (chocolate x nut Weichprinten for 9,60 €).
For lunch, we went to Homeburgers (website). Instead of ordering a burger from the menu, I filled out the special order form. ^_~ On the form, you could select the cheese, the toppings, the sauce and optionally add a drink and friench fries (8,70 €).
Everything tasted very good!
My boyfried took a picture of my lolita-inspired outfit in front of the city hall (Rathaus).
outfit rundown: cutsew Maxicimam skirt my-lolita-dress hand bag Innocent World tights Teja Jamilla shoes Deichmann
At the end of the day, we visited the industrial sellings of Lindt and Bahlsen (Werksverkauf).
The industrial sellings were quite different from my expectations: I had expected to see broken items and faulty items, e.g. chocolate with unwanted air bubbles, items with broken packages, chocolate with a mix of two different kind of fillings and so on.
The industrial sellings at Lindt looked like the chocolate section in a big department store. The chocolate was the same that can be found in the shops, just cheaper. The only "faulty" items I can remember were plastic bags filled with items that were without their original packaging.
Unfortunately, it was not allowed to take pictures inside the shop...
We bought different kind of chocolates and filled chocolate balls:
The industrial sellings at Bahlsen were more closer to my expectations: There were no shelves in the shops, just packages in boxes. And there were "faulty" items.
My boyfriend and me bought: one box of chocolate biskuits, without the original packaging and including some broken bars (1x 5,95 €), cinnamon star cookies (5x 1,60 €) and spicy almond biscuit (Gewürz-Spekulatius) (1x 1,20 €).
Back in Düsseldorf, my boyfriend and me went to the Japanese restaurant Naniwa in the evening, the one with sushi (29,20 € for the sushi).
In the first floor, there is a picture of a lolita. ;)
I think it might be from a very old Gothic Lolita Bible...?
Tuesday, September 6, 2016: zoos in Wuppertal and Gelsenkirchen
We arrived at zoo Wuppertal very early in the morning. The entrance fee was 14,50 €.
The zoo does not have red pandas, but snow leopards, tigers, lions, wolves, elephants, penguins, polar bears and seals. Unfortunately, the snow owl was not shown because its area is currently under construction.
We arrived zoo Gelsenkirchen around 12. It is called "ZOOM Erlebniswelt".
The entrence fee was 19,50 €. The zoo map costed 1 €.
It has two red pandas, birds, rascals, different bears, wolves, tigers, seals, hyenas, porcupine, giraffe and more.
The enclosures were designed in a really nice way.
And we took a ride with the boats in the river and took the fun ride "Alaska Ice Ride".
All the rides were for free!
We ate lunch at a restaurant inside the zoo. It is called "Ryokan", but it had nothing to do with the traditional Japanese hotel of the same name.
I ordered chicken with vegetables (10,50 €) and ice tea peach (4 € for 0,5l).
We were quite tired on our way to the hotel and ate bread from a shop at the station in the train.
Our friend attended the speech on snow leopards at the zoo Kreefeld as planned and liked it a lot.
Wednesday, September 7, 2016: journey home
We ate lunch at Subway. I had a pulled pork sandwich and a cookie with Macadamia nuts ^_^
By the way, I crocheted in the car on the way there and home. I am working on a bag for my camera.
