A day in Bochum

Bochum. A city sandwiched between Dortmund and Essen. Famous not for its excellent university but for the singer Herbert Grönemeyer and his song "Bochum", which is practically the city's hymn. Everyone around here knows the words and everyone joins in when it's being sung!

Cactus veil - cactus house

Our day started out with a walk through my most favourite place here. The university's botanical garden. I love this place. It is an extensive garden with different geographical areas including tropical, savannah, and desert in the green houses. Another amazing thing about this garden is that it is absolutely free. The only gripe that I have is that the signs are only in German. 

The green house

To get to the main gate take the U-35 to Lennershof, turn left coming out of the station and walk straight down the road. At the end of the road you will see the university buildings on your right, walk keeping them on your right hand side and as the road bends around at the southern end of campus you will find the main entrance.

This is were we started out on a sunny but cold autumn day.

Our first stop were the ponds, because we have not been there for a while. They are great for a photo shoot. In the summer they are inhabited by wildlife and if you are lucky you will see the resident water snake.

Water snakes and Sequoia trees

We headed along the path and turned up hill to get to the green houses passing the vegetable garden on the way. Because of the crazy weather things were still growing. We saw artichokes, tomatoes, leeks, napa cabbage and lots of different herbs.

Kale (?) and artichoke in the vegetable garden

I love the green houses and this time I had time to take some pictures of my favourite plant, the cactus. I particularly love this plant because it's something I can grow without killing. Almost all plants die in my house. Cacti have the highest life expectancy!

A selection of Cacti

The tropical house reminds me of Sri Lanka. There is all the vegetation that you would find in my parents back garden including coconut, banana, cocoa, bamboo, shoe flowers and many many more. There is a turtle in the pond, some type of birds walking around and a stream runs through the middle of the green house. Not a great place for photos because of the lack of contrasting colours (everything is green) and the humidity that fogs up your lens!

A typical Sri Lankan shoe flower

The Savannah is pretty boring. Once they had a butterfly exhibit in there. That was really cool. On the weekend you can buy tea and coffee at the entrance and there is a watering can by the door where you can make a donation. Which I highly recommend if you can. The green houses are also the only place in the gardens with restrooms!

Chinese tea garden - from outside

After the green houses we headed to the Chinese tea garden. It's perfect for a photo shoot, which is why we had to dodge around a bride and groom and a photographer with a huge tripod. The path is very narrow so it makes it a bit difficult! Don't forget not to feed the carp in the pond! The garden is authentic and when some kids vandalized it a couple of years ago they had to close it down until they could get replacements manufactured and sent from China.

We had had enough of the gardens, because it was really cold, but there is lots more to see if you have time.
Heading out of the tea garden and upwards we climbed up the long stair case to get to the middle of the university. After a couple more stair cases we were at the heart of the campus. The Audimax.

Audimax - Ruhr University Bochum

Opposite the Audimax is the university's art collection. Being free of charge, warm and having a WC this was our next stop. You are not allowed to take photographs in the museum so I can't show you what it looks like from the inside. There is a bit of art, some very old Greek style sculptures, some old coins, an impressive oil lamp display and an even more impressive pottery display. It's so impressive that we asked the person working there if they were replicas. She claimed they were original! It will take you a maximum of 45 minutes to get through this very small museum.

Kunst Sammlung der Uni Bochum

Our next stop was the graffiti tunnel. To get there we continued walking towards the subway station "Ruhr Universitaet". Crossed over Universitaetsstr. and then took the escalators down to the bus station. From there you just continue in the same direction and turn left and go down through the tunnel. Be very careful. Even thought the speed limit is 30 km/h through the tunnel people usually drive 50. The sidewalks are narrow and you may have to navigate around graffiti artists.

I'm not sure how it works, but the art work changes sporadically. If you are lucky you will see some amazing graffiti. But you could also come after someone has sprayed the whole tunnel with some crazy text. Amateurs stick to the periphery, so in the tunnel itself you'll almost never find something that is not worth looking at. Here are some shots of what was on show last week.

There are many options for food at the "Uni Center", which is at the top of the escalator. Currently you can choose from 3 bakeries, a vegan cafe, at least 2 pizza places, Chinese food, doner Kebab, a mini pub, two burger places and more. Note that the Chinese food is oily, bad fast food and in the restaurant on the upper level I was once served a salad with a live caterpillar in it. The food and the service sucks there. We had lunch at burger brothers, who have two vegetarian options which were both good.

If it is you have not visited the German national mining museum, you should definitely head there next. The U-35 subway will take you directly there. At the moment they are renovating and only the mine is open. Given that we've been down there a hundred times we didn't want to go again. I'm waiting for the renovation to be done (summer 2019?) and then I'll go see what they've done to it. This museum will take up most of your afternoon.

And if you've never been before you should definitely take in an evening at Bochum's one and only musical Starlight Express. It's in German so if you don't understand the language read the story before you go. It's not so much about the story but more about the roller skates and costumes. We didn't go see it this time. We've been there twice before and our kids 3 times. True Bochumers!!

Our day did not end at lunch. Afterwards we went to see our friends art exhibition and then went home to play the new board games we had bought the day before at the Spiele Messe in Essen.

If you are looking for great places to have dinner in Bochum try Yamas for excellent Greek Mezze (it's a wine bar and usually very loud, reservations are a must). If you have a car and need a sushi fix visit Takeshi's for expensive, delicious sushi (reservations recommended). Great East Asian food can be found at Hatoky (avoid the sushi), fries between Kortumstr. 1 and 3, and the best ice cream ever (seasonal) at 4eck. Of course there are plenty of places to eat and surprisingly Bochum has pretty good food with sushi and Indian food being the exceptions.

Hamburg Weekend Itinerary

This is an itinerary for 2 and a half days in Hamburg with younger children. We did this with children ranging from 2 to 10 years of age.

Day 1: 

• Kunsthalle Hamburg (10 a.m. - 6 p.m.; closed on Mondays)
• Planten um Blomen   (interactive plan of the park in German)

Day 2: 

• Fischmarkt (only open on Sunday; closes at 9:30 a.m.)
• Ferry ride
• Hagenbeck Zoo (at least from 9 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.) 

Day 3:

• Miniatur Wunderland (at least from 9:30 a.m. - 6 p.m.)

The Details!

Day 1: 

After breakfast we headed out to the "Kunsthalle Hamburg" (closed on Mondays). Since we were up early we opted to walk from our hotel (Holiday Inn Express Hamburg City Center) to the museum. We walked along the Aussenalster and it took about 30 minutes with the kids riding scooters.

View Hamburg in a larger map

We only stayed a couple of hours at the museum and walked over to the main train station (Hamburg Hbf) to have lunch. They have a huge selection of healthy and unhealthy foods in their food court which is on the left hand side as you walk in through the main entrance. On the first floor there is a supermarket where you can also get food and drinks. We stocked up on drinks here because it was cheaper than in the food court!

From the train station we caught the subway U2 in the direction Niendorf Nord and got out at Messehallen. Don't follow the signs to Planten um Blomen because you'll end up on a main road and it's not obvious where you should go from here. Take the exit "Sievekingplatz" and you'll end up right in the park itself. When you come out turn right and continue down the path and you'll see a huge playground which is where we spent a good part of our afternoon. The cafe is very close by and serves simple food. Further down the road there are trampolines and mini-golf. We finished up our afternoon by visiting the green houses (Tropenhaus or schaugewächshäuser). They were really good and were free. A bit of information that we wished we had known before is that the green houses have public toilets. These are neither marked on the maps nor sign boarded!

After this we headed to the university area (which is north east of the park) to find some dinner. There are plenty of dinning options in the area.

Day 2: 

Our second day was a Sunday and after a quick breakfast we took the subway down to the Elbe. We took the U3 from Lübeckerstr. in the direction of Hbf to Landungsbrüken. From there we walked out to the river and caught the ferry number 62. This took us to the Fischmarkt. Inside the huge building there is not much to see. It's a great place to get some breakfast if you haven't already and there are toilets on the first floor, just ask someone working there for directions. Outside the building walk back in the direction you came from and you will pass people selling all kinds of things! At last you will see a few fish mongers. Wait until around 9 to 9:15 and the vendors selling fresh food will start shouting and trying to sell off their ware!! 

The ferry makes a loop so if you want to see some of the harbour just get on the 62 and continue along the river. You don't need to get out at the end just stay on till it eventually gets back to Landungsbrüken. The ferry is the cheapest way to see the harbour because it is part of the public transport system. You can find other harbour ferry routes at this website: www.hadag.de/english/harbour-ferries.html 

After a nice relaxing morning we hit the zoo. To get there you need to take the U3 back to Hbf and then from there the U2 in the direction Niendorf Nord. Exit at "Hagenbecks Tierpark". The zoo is very good and likewise it is also rather expensive. Plan to spend the rest of your day there! 

We got back to the city in the late afternoon and ate at a fish restaurant (they have veggie options too) that turned out to be very friendly to our tiered and loud children!

Day 3:

Today we hit the Miniatur Wunderland. We reserved our tickets on-line to avoid the lines and got in without having to wait. It was quite amazing the amount of detail that they put into the exhibits. The kids had a lot of fun at the beginning but they didn't last more than 2 hours before they needed a break. No problems the cafeteria at the Miniatur Wunderland was very good and reasonably priced. We had some healthy pasta that they prepare as you order right in front of you again veggie options were available. Then we quickly walked through the rest of the exhibits. If you can hold out it could take the whole day to walk through this place but I doubt that that would be possible if you have children with you. The air gets a bit stuffy and the crowds a bit much. My advice: get there as soon as they open so that the kids can get a good view. 

After this we left Hamburg!!