the entry to the fortress of rüsselsheim.
rüsselsheim is a city very close to frankfurt's southern borders, about 20 km southwest off wiesbaden and mainly known for being the birth place of the car manufacture opel. i always imagined rüsselsheim to be quite ugly and boring, until my parents and i went on our first visit on the last day of the easter holidays. the city surprised us with an ancient fortress and a nice promenade with an air of industrial atmosphere along the main river! granted, we didn't see much else of the city that day, but ya know, some things may have to be revisited in the future, and how boring would life be if we didn't have any cities to explore anymore?
since my parents wanted to return to thuringia in the evening, we kept our visit brief, but it surely made me curious for more! as rüsselsheim is an important center of commerce and industry, it never occurred to me that it might have more to offer than factories and industrial sites. i'm pretty sure there are some more hidden gems in this city that need to be uncovered.
our first stop was at the rüsselsheim fortress, a medieval fortification from 1399 ( when it was first mentioned in documents ). it's always been a very important structure for the region, even served as headquarters in quite a few militant disputes like the schmalkaldic or the nine years' war during which it was destroyed, reconstructed and destroyed again until it stayed partly ruinous. it's been a prison, a military hospital, a mushroom cultivation plant and a youth hostel after it lost its meaning of defense. these days you can find the city's museum inside, which shows you all what you need to know about rüsselsheim's history, from its medieval roots to the industrial products that made rüsselsheim famous. apparently it's been decorated some museum awards for its interesting concept, but that's something i can't attest to, as we didn't step inside ( the weather was waaaay to nice ). we did sit down for lunch inside the cafe right next to it, though, the easter brunch was quite lovely!
you probably wonder why the inner courtyard of the fortress looks so unytpically un-medieval, that's because the museum was installed in 1976 and some architects thought it'd be a nice idea to add some sort of 70ies touch to it!
i liked the brutalist facade a lot, though i totally get when people dismiss it. it's definitely not breathing ancient air, that's for sure!
the gate house is well preserved, though.
as is the outer appearance overall! this fortress is one of the best preserved four-winged fortresses in germany. apparently there aren't too many of these still in existence.
you can explore the fortress's grounds extensively, the moats and ramparts are freely accessible and you will have a great view over the main meadows from there.
the moats were turned into a little park, filled with trees and bushes, and some park benches to rest tired legs or simply relax.
above your head you will notice a lot of planes flying by, a byproduct of the nearby frankfurt airport. rüsselsheim is greatly affected by the proximity to the biggest airport of germany, which results in constant air traffic, which i'm guessing is not always a great thing ( high volume levels ).
but it is still pretty cool to watch them fly over your head so low. i mean, at least for someone who isn't living there 😅
iran air coming.
iran air going.
time to focus on the fortress again. you can see pretty well that the 1970ies addition basically is a stockpiled roof extension.
and it is quite cleverly incorporated into the original structure!
the gate house from outside the fortress.
always fascinated by fresh spring greens glowing against the sun.
a tunnel that you need to traverse in order to get inside the courtyard.
leftover of a round bastion that initially had two levels, where you can see the magnitude of wall thickness. these walls were about 4,20 m thick and the bastions were not only built for defense, but also used as accommodation for people during wars. about 30 people could fit inside, but it wasn't living, it was more like dwelling inside in precarious conditions.
more fresh greens in the sunlight 😍
the main meadows are a long and broad patch of land and serve as a local recreation spot ( and more importantly as a natural retention space in case of floods ). you can find a few interesting sculptures there, like this looping!
of course we had to try it out! it was fun to walk helter-skelter 😜 the sculpture is called 'shortcut' and was created by martin feldbauer in 2017.
there are some observational viewpoints along the river, where you can watch boats, ships, canoes and other water sports enthusiasts doing their thing. the tanks in the back are oil or gas tanks that belong to 'shell'.
on the other side of the river is the municipal area of flörsheim.
every now and then a swan made its appearance ❤
we made a tiny break here to enjoy the river views.
sometimes i wish i had a small pleasure boat myself, preferably without motor, though. a sailboat perhaps? i'd even make do with a row boat haha.
i also would love to try out canoeing someday. swimming with the swans :3
this is actually a bench, but at the same time it's an art sculpture as well. it says the following things: 'where am i? as if in a dream... did we arrive?' the bench was made by özlem günyol and mustafa gunt, two immigrants who came to germany to study. their intention was also to point to the refugee crisis of 2015, with its curves the bench depicts the balkan route that syrian refugees used to come to europe.
another sculpture can be found on the mainwiesen ( main meadows ), that of mario hergueta. hergueta lives in rüsselsheim and therefore it was self-evident that he wanted to contribute his work to the city landscape. the sculpture consists of interlaced letters that form the german word 'heimat' ( home ), which is the title of his sculpture. it's made out of corten steel. in the back you see the 'opelvillen', two villas that are linked to each other and are used as a museum of modern art these days.
this tower is part of the verna park, a park with artificial ruins, grottos, fountains and other little gimmicks that are usually used in english landscape gardens. the park was designed from 1850 to 1865 for wilhelmine von verna, a baroness, who was the name giver for the park. it was first a private garden, but when the heirs sold the real estate to the city in 1911 it was turned into a public park. we peeked into the park, but didn't explore it properly, so there's not a lot more on this. apparently rüsselsheim inhabitants are very proud of this little garden gem near the rhine river, so maybe i should check it out again the next time i visit.
this obelisk was made out of shell limestone and is one of the original gimmicks inside the park.
we continued our walk along the main river. being around water always soothes me, so i actually prefer rivers or lakes or the sea to the narrowness of parks, especially if they aren't very big structures to begin with.
those gas/oil tanks surely added an interesting character to the river. when i think of the river main i rarely think of romantic and appealing landscapes along its shores, but rather it being a river in a highly industrialized region. it's definitely not as romantic as the middle rhine valley, but that might depend on who you ask ;) everyone probably has their own version of what they think of as romantic.
swans were abundant near the river! ❤
the overpass here was attached to a berth that belongs to the opel manufacture, it's called 'opelsteg' ( opel overpass ). there's also a power station there, which gives this part of the path a super industrial feeling! the premises were once the company-owned harbour, but it's not used anymore, so they decided to make it more attractive for people who wanted to explore the main river. before they built this overpass, tourists and locals alike had to put up with a big detour through the city to get to the other side. since 2015 you are now able to continue your way along the main river without that diversion.
another swan passed us by, and swam to his wife who nested directly next to the bridge.
two eggs in the nest! it was funny to me how the swan couple nested so very close to the busy overpass!
overpass symmetries.
as we reached the other side, we turned around to walk back again. since the time was pressing and my parents wanted to at least do a little nap before they headed back to thuringia we decided to interrupt our walk and head back. if we had continued we would have spent the whole day in rüsselsheim as the path was still going on for a few kilometers, and my parents would've been too tired to drive back 😅 here's the power station i mentioned earlier. it also is part of the opel manufacture. on my next visit i want to explore this part of rüsselsheim as well, as it obviously is something that made the city famous. the whole factory is huge, it's basically its own district.
interesting architecture we found on our way back through the city. unfortunately, no info about its history anywhere, but it apparently houses a citizen's center now. the bull's eyes are pretty iconic i think! probably was built in the 1970ies, is my guess.
this is also rüsselsheim, timber-framed houses!
all in all, this visit gave me some stimulus to revisit rüsselsheim again, maybe on a bad weather day to see the fortress's museum or the art museum inside the opelvillen, or for more exploration around the opelwerk area or the verna park on good weather days. maybe there's even more surprises waiting that i ain't aware of yet!
until then, stay curious!
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