| Page Views: 8,070 Last Visit to Darmstadt: - | Discovering Darmstadt with tourist's eyes :-) by Trekki - last update: Mar 7, 2009 |
I'm truly sorry for having ignored you 19 years ! | Mathildenhöhe - Wedding Tower |
Updates January 2009:
I exchanged almost all weblinks, as the so-called Darmstadt "marketing" has decided to delete some information on their former website, thus many former links did lead to error 404.. But I found other links.
So I am expected to write an intro about the town where I live and work ? It seems so. This is not an easy task as … how should I put it… I don’t like it here very much. It is not the city but the authorities or better the municipality who make life not the easiest here. Driving with car or bike can drive you mad, as whoever is responsible for a smooth traffic has never ever heard of the existence of phased traffic lights and are plain xxx (censored, lol). Bike lanes are hardly exisitng and if, they are squeezed in so that bikers have to take extra care not to get run over by cars or busses. When I looked at the newest version of Google Earth I laughed when I saw that a guy (obviously living here) has made the effort to mark lousy biking lanes in GE. Streetcars do have something like god’s rights and often ignore pedestrians or bikers. Car parking is ridiculously expensive compared to other big cities. Public transport is good, but also this is ridiculously expensive compared to other big cities. I am lucky to have a so-called job ticket (where the employer pays almost half of a yearly transport card). The city centre is ugly and despite the attempt of the officials to make it nice (I couldn’t even call it effort as effort implies for me a desire to do something), they fail badly. Nice and special shops can hardly be sustainable, maybe it is a ridiculous high rent (it wouldn’t surprise me), so many shops are more of the typical chains without any real charm and good service (but with shop assistents which are lousy paid and therefore cannot be blamed for the service and customer orientation). Rents are ridiculously high, even higher than in Frankfurt or Munich and the overall attitude of the officials or the ones responsible for tourism is very much arrogant. Darmstadt was even "funny" enough to apply to be listed as UNESCO heritage. Thanks god, the UNESCO officials have some strength and refused this. But I doubt that the officials will learn something from this. On the other hand it is good as they don’t have an instrument to raise the prices even more beyond limits.
But… I have found a bit of peace with this city. I have found “my” shops to leave my money. And on weekends I can hop in the car or train and just go somewhere else, mostly to Palatine, where people are merry and officials at least know a bit of what people want of cities and villages and are prepared to offer friendlyness and want to make you feel at home – something that Darmstadt unfortunately fails in.
But Darmstadt has interesting sights, and I am showing some of them. For a one day visitor it might be nice to walk around, but they can go back home in the evening :-), haha :-)
As of February 2008, my Darmstadt page is revised, as I have enough nice-weather photos now to show how beautiful some sights can be. I still have to do some work in the restaurant section. |
| Mathildenhöhe - sycamore grove |
|  | Historical aspects of Darmstadt Darmstadt's surroundings have quite an old history. Eberstadt, a little suburb south of town, was first mentioned in 782 A.D. in documents of Monastery (Kloster) Lorsch
In 1330, King Ludwig the Bavarian chartered Darmstadt as a city, which then became headquarter for the ruling landgraves (Landgrafen). In 1567, it was appointed Shire "Hessen-Darmstadt" and later in 1806 Grand Duchy of the state of Hessen.
In early 20th century, Grand Duke (Grossherzog) Ernst Ludwig established the artists' colony (Künstlerkolonie) on Mathildenhöhe, through which Darmstadt became a quite important center of Art Nouveau in Germany. A lot of the buildings of this period still exist and Ernst-Ludwig-Haus is now a famous museum.
There are more interesting landmarks which can be visited on or near Mathildenhöhe: the Hochzeitsturm (marriage tower), which is now the symbol of Darmstadt, the Russian Chapel, which was built by Tzar Nikolas II, whose wife Alexandra was born in Darmstadt and Rosenhöhe, a nice park nearby.
Today Darmstadt promotes itself as "City of Science", ESOC (European Space Operation Center) and GSI (Institute for Heavy Ion Research) are located here. Here are also the HQs of some multinational and European companies, such as Merck KGaA (chemical-pharmaceutical company and main provider for liquid crystals), Wella AG (Haircare), Carl Schenk AG (process engineering), Software AG (biggest European provider for software systems and solutions) and T-Online (said to be the biggest European internet provider).
Oh, and "funny" as Darmstadt is, feeling to be the centre of science, it has now the so-called Darmstadtium, a congress complex next to Technical University and Castle. But…. it seems that this is also only a money factory, as they seriously allow multivision lecturer Dieter Glogowski, who recently was convicted of cheating and his “roaring” show “Tibet – escape from the roof of the world” (Tibet – Flucht vom Dach der Welt) to be a fake, to present here. Is this scientific ? Darmstadtium at least stands for science, it is a chemical element of the super heavy atom class and was created in 1994 by the aforementioned GSI. |
| Art Deco window in Ernst Ludwig Haus |
| | I am pleased to say that Don (@Nemorino) has finally wrote about his impressions of Darmstadt from several visits and who can better talk about opera facilities than him? And I like the neutral view he has - maybe I simply should learn to close one eye and only see the good things of our city :-)
And following her visit in October 2005, Joan (@scottishvisitor) also found the time to tell us her view of the city :-)
All pictures have been taken by myself, if not marked otherwise.
Please do not use any of them without my permission.
The same applies for my writings here.
Thanks.
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 Comments for Trekki about Darmstadt | | | | |
leics Mon Aug 17, 2009 06:30 UTC
Yes.....out of season, stay overnight (looks like nice walks down to the river too), maybe do the tour. Worth an exploration imo. Off to Malta now. Hugs. Jx | BruceDunning Wed Aug 5, 2009 22:53 UTC
I know why you get behind in posting comments-you have such good detail and indepth perspective. Thank yo for the tour | LoriPori Fri Jan 23, 2009 12:43 UTC
Really enjoyed your home page of Darmstadt. It's not really so bad. My favourites are the Wedding Tower, Ernst-Ludwig Haus, the oldest part - Ressungen, St. Ludwig Church & the art nouveau house - Moosberstrasse No. 60 | Escadora7 Sun Oct 5, 2008 07:23 UTC
Hallo Ingrid! Nice Darmstadt tips - I went there for a business trip, but other than the ESOC buildings, I didn't see much! Bummer - looks like I missed a lot. Viele Grüße aus Los Angeles, Eve |
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