Solingen and its surroundings ...

Just what sort of a place is this anyway?

The wooded hilly countryside around Burg Castle is crisscrossed by a huge number of streams. Here nature seems to be on the move and the scenery changes from minute to minute: woods, sunny meadows, rugged cliffs and babbling brooks. If you look a little closer you will find hiking trails in the surrounding countryside containing many traces of early industrialisation along the streams: disused grinding shops, ditches and waterwheels. Water power was the driving force behind the production of scissors, knives and files. The Bergisch towns enjoyed intensive trading relationships that yielded a modest fortune. Historic localities like Solingen Unterburg with its black slate-covered houses, white windowsills and shining green shutters can tell you a lot about the old days.
 

Solingen-Burg

The area around Burg Castle

The Esch stream babbles through the locality. The streets are lined with old half-timbered homes and slate covered houses with small restaurants and pleasant cafes which offer the famous Burg Pretzels. From here is just thirty minutes on foot to the Müngsten Tressel Park. Here a gigantic steel bridge – it’s over 100 years old – spans the valley. One of the highlights in Unterburg is the funicular railway/ chair lift station! The first ever funicular railway/ chair lift in North Rhine Westphalia runs over the Wupper and up the steep hillside to the castle.
 
 

Remscheid

Town of tools and x-rays

Tools are what made this town great! And nowadays Remscheid businesses still export their goods all over the world – everything from pliers to special machines. The German Tool Museum (Deutsches Werkzeugmuseum) is dedicated to their history. The town is a byword for inventions and precision. Furthermore one of its most famous citizens was Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, who discovered x-rays in 1895 (Röntgen is German for x-ray). A museum in the old town centre of Lennep is dedicated to his life and work.
 

Solingen

Town of Blades

Solingen is all about knives and scissors. The entire cultural history of cutting tools is presented in the German Blade Museum in Gräfrath, the most homely suburb in Solingen. You can learn more about manufacturing in detail at an original showplace, the Hendrichs Drop Forge. But if you take a look inside the many small and large factory outlets you will see that they have also made their way into the future with stylishly designed cutlery and knives that are in great demand all over the world.
 

Wuppertal...

... the town with the overhead railway.

Built between 1898 and 1903 the overhead railway (Schwebebahn) mostly runs directly above the River Wupper – for that was the only place where there was still any room. The remainder of the town was packed full with weaving mills, spinning mills and dying plants whose very existence depended on water from the river. You can find traces of this history everywhere in the town, for example in the family house of Friedrich Engels with its Museum of Early Industrialisation. The Von-der-Heydt Museum has a wonderful collection of art, and last not least Wuppertal is still the headquarters of the famous Pina Bausch Dance Company.