retiredmartin

Waterbeach is back to its cosmopolitan best.

We can have takeaways from the Italian run pub, the Chinese chippy, the English pub, the Turkish kebab van, the Bangladeshi curry house, and finally the Cantonese takeaway.

And this morning Boswell (no relation to James) the Baker had apple strudel served by the delightful German lady who always seems happy to be there rather than in a Rhineland patisserie.

Really good, and with my reduced beer intake since lockdown they fit neatly into my strict diet.

I’m really missing trips to Germany. Ten trip this century, but the last was Hamburg three years ago.  Next time I’ll take the train.

In June 2015, just before this blog, I took James on a father & son round the Ruhr.

We stayed in the excellent (cheap, working WiFi) B&B Hotels in Dortmund, Bonn and Duisburg, which all give easy access to the better-known beer destinations of Cologne, Dusseldorf and, er, Essen.

You could spend a week watching old school German football round here, or a week working off strudel and schnitzel by climbing disused industrial architecture.

As with Benedict’s BBC dramatisation of Dominic Cummings, you probably have an image of Duisburg from this League of Gentleman episode;

Built on iron, steel and chemicals, it was pretty comprehensively bombed in 1943-44 and the city centre will come as a bit of a disappointment, except to fans of Middlesbrough and Plymouth.

Actually, with its modern shopping centre and free activities it’s more akin to Middlesbrough, and you can pretend the schnitzel is a parmesan.

You can eat and drink here cheaper than in Middlesbrough, but you should come for the FREE playgrounds.

The Tiger & Turtle is basically a giant rollercoaster you walk round and feel nauseous at the top while you admire the power plants.

We tipped up before the German holidays and had it to ourselves.

At the more famous Landschaftspark on Friday night, we were competing with the entire population of the Ruhr AND the clubbers out in force for pumping house in the blast furnace.

In the UK, this would be sanitised with soft play and visual interpretation and Health & Safety. Here, you just get one with it.  Quosh would love it.

I was trying to think of something similar and came up with the Big Pit Welsh mining place and then gave up.

Decent beer in the tents outside the blast furnace, but from Duisburg you can catch the train and in seventeen (17) minutes be in Dusseldorf and this place;

Of which more later.