GERMANY – Wuppertal (population: +/- 350,000), which as the name suggests, lies in the valley of the river Wupper, is a town I had long wanted to visit for two reasons. Firstly, “only” 40% of it was destroyed in WW2, making it good place to see what other towns in the heavily industrialised Rhine-Ruhr region (most of which were almost completely destroyed) must have looked like before. Secondly, its schwebebahn (‘floating train’), which is suspended over the river Wupper, is unique in the world.
My first impression was similar to that of the much smaller Belgian town of Verviers:
The monorail again:
It’s almost surrealistic to see such long rows of nineteenth century houses in a German town this size:
Wuppertal, which translates as Wupper Valley, is much longer than it is wide, and follows the valley for about 10 kilomters:
Of course I couldn’t visit Wuppertal without taking the monorail, which is quite noisy and not very comfortable:
I got off at Oberbarmen, at the eastern end of town:
This area seems to have been more heavily bombed, and fewer pre-war buildings remain:
The center of Barmen, which I think functions as the main center of the whole of Wuppertal:
Apart from the monorail, this area looks similar to other West-German towns that were rebuilt after the war:
Continuing westwards (I had my folding bike with me), back into the part of town that wasn’t bombed:
The center of Wuppertal itself:
Close to where I initially got on the monorail:
Climbing a hill in the eastern end of town:
Back on the bridge from which I took the first picture (which is close to the central station):
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