visiting the ugliest part of Germany 

Wuppertal is actually not part of the Ruhrgebiet. It´s part of the „Bergisches Land“.

I'm a Brazilian living in the Ruhrgebiet for a few months. Lots of history and culture. Plus, the people here are very open and friendly.

0:56 Correction: Steel doesn't have any natural deposits. You can produce steel with iron and coal which is booth available in the Ruhrgebiet.

I was born in the Ruhrpott and love it here. The industrial scenery fits its character to this day.

I grew up there, and yes, it can be a depressing area. But it has a lot of decent, very hospitable and hard working people. It's easy to make friends there. However, shortly after school I moved to Hamburg and never regretted it.

From a photographers standpoint I always found the Ruhrgebiet very interesting! I'm a big fan of Germany anyways but I really like the old industrial buildings! Congrats on the new camera btw :D

sad person from Bochum here :(

To someone who doesn't live in Germany, these cities look interesting. Personally, I like going to places where you have to scratch the surface to find fascination; I like places with industrial history and heritage...more relatable than "ancient" cities. Cities are about people more than buildings at the end of the day. Thanks for taking me to the Ruhr! Keep making videos with an alternative perspective and dry humour. Love from the UK!

"Looking at Duisburg from the rest of germany is like looking at Germany from Switzerland " (Hazel Brugger)

Essen is a lot nicer in the south! Should you ever come here again for some reason, I'd reccomend you to go to Rüttenscheid (which is considered the better center of Essen), Werden and Kettwig, also the Baldeneysee is very beautiful in the summer (big lake). But its a good vlog nevertheless, surprisingly a lot more positive than we ruhr people are used to 👍

Nice video I come from Dortmund and have some small additions that might have been interesting for your video. First of all, I would like to emphasize with a smile that Dortmund is the largest city in the Ruhrpott (Ruhr area) with 593,941 inhabitants. (Essen 586 344) The largest Christmas tree in the world would certainly have fitted perfectly into your video, especially as you were only a few steps away from it. The Dortmund Christmas market is really beautiful. The U, which you liked and is the city's landmark, used to be one of the largest and most modern breweries in the world. Dortmund was once the largest beer city in the world next to Milwaukee. Last but not least, maybe you should watch a video of the south stand or maybe even visit it. then you'll quickly understand that "a club" was a bit of an understatement. In any case, a nice entertaining video. =)

Really enjoyed this! I grew up in the so-called "rust belt" of the midwestern US. I love a modern city or an architecturally stunning one, but I always feel at home and charmed in a different sort of way by cities with industrial history. Haven't been to this part of Germany yet, but have always wanted to visit Wuppertal because of the Schwebebahn.

I really like how your editing and presentation has evolved overtime and this is really your best video yet. I love the subtle wit and banter that you put in and you can really feel your personality and style through these videos more and more. Please keep doing what you are doing. It's really cool following your journey(s) here on youtube. Lots of love!

My head hurts like hell bc I am sick as hell and I was so bored of scrolling on tiktok..and your vid gave me something else to focus on so ty a lot :D hope you have fun with what your doing too

Thank you for the video!! I grew up in Oberhausen but i currently don't live in the Ruhrgebiet due to university. It was nice seeing these places again. I will be moving back to the region soon, there is a charm i cant really describe that makes it enjoyable to live there (and the cheap rent lol). My fav places are Baldeneysee (good for hiking), Grugapark, Saan-Mendener Ruhraue and generally walking by the Ruhr river. The nature is really great even tho there are so many big cities. They also started building many bike lanes that even connect the cities as a sort of Autobahn for bicycles which is really cool. I also enjoy the many different cultures that live here and come together. And a big plus as you've said is the closeness to Düsseldorf and Cologne. When i was living in Oberhausen we would usually go to Düsseldorf to hang out since as you saw there isnt much in Oberhausen other than petting animals in the kaisergarten (where u saw the weird long bridge) or going to Centro.

Love your videos. Beautiful country. Have been there once, had a great time.

the random metal thingies up on hills in the middle of nowhere are usually on artificial hills, Halden, made from all the earth we dug out of the ground here. If we had a proper earthquake the whole region would be a dozen meters lower afterwards. Same if we stopped pumping the water out of the now empty tunnels and caverns below

lovely video! Here in Amsterdam, and other cities across the country, we have Elephant statues with similar various art on them, similar to the flying dragons you saw!

nice to watch your videos Erika! Dusseldorf is also my favorite and the place where i can live. i`m waiting for your new videos with your new camera :)

Thank you for making this video. I never been in those cities.

Thanks for the video .. I had a plan of moving to west part of germany to be near the netherlands.. but after seeing the groundbreaking architecture of those cities,, i think that i will stick to moving directly to utrecht.. nice hair cut

You are very lighthearted and funny! Enjoy watching your videos!

I think you would have enjoyed to see the southern areas of the big Ruhrgebietsstädte as well. In the south of Dortmund, Bochum, Essen, Duisburg, the Ruhr river crosses former independent villages. It’s surrounded by woods and meadows and there are a lot of barrier lakes. The bigges one is the Baldeneysee in Essen, which is a beautiful area to relax, spend time in nature or go on a little boat trip. Overall, I was very happy with what you said about my home town and surrounding Ruhrgebietsstädte.

The oldest known form of the city's name is Astnide, which changed to Essen by way of forms such as Astnidum, Assinde, Essendia and Esnede. The name Astnide may have referred either to a region where many ash trees were found or to a region in the East. 3:56

That's a list with many of my favorite places. Absolutely love the industry stuff.

Thanks for making a travel vlog to a place I won't likely visit 😅

Thanks for another informative and charming video. Congrats on the new camera, I noticed you looked different but didn’t realize it was due to a different lens. Hope all is going well.

I was in Duisburg at around the same time, I remember those exact christmas markets being closed 😅 I was also pleasantly surprised by the inner harbor! I think most ruhr cities did a good job renovating the industrial areas, I believe they deserve better than to be called the ugly part of germany even if they lost their historical buildings. Though the fact that I like the 1900s industrial style probably affects my opinion quite a bit.

Great video, but you missed Bochum, in my humble opinion the most interesting city in the Ruhr area. It's a little more cozy. I strongly recommend visiting it.

I loove industriality so cities like this I found beautiful!! Ostrava in Czech rep. is my favourite! 🖤 Also giirl you bit look like Kate Marsh from life is strange🥹

Man it's wild seeing someone make a proper video about the region I've lived in all my life! The Ruhrpott does grow on you once you found your spots in it. Thanks to the high density of cities and towns you get to see new places and meet new people whenever you want, which is a plus. It's a very connected area and pretty much everyone's been everywhere at some point.

I actually went on vacation to the Ruhrgebiet and very much enjoyed it. As an enjoyer of industrial history it is a great place to go. Also a lot of old railway lines got converted to really nice bicycle paths.

I really enjoy your content. It is very charming and informative. Looking forward to more :)

The subways and trams you're showing aren't the ones that are suffering from bad punctuality. The national rail network "Deutsche Bahn" is what sucks these days. The local rail is still better than in most countries. In the UK, a Duisburg sized city can only dream of having its own subway network.

I love your Videos there so fun thank you. Greetings from Germany, Hanover❤

One of my greatest hobbies is public transport. I visit the cities not only because architecture and culture, but because of metro, trams, buses and others. And right this is in Ruhrgebiet very, very interesting. There is Schwebebahn in Wuppertal, H-Bahn in Dortmund, Sky-train in Düsseldorf, gretest german partially trolleybuses system in Solingen, Spurbuses in Essen, U-Bahn (metro) which is combined with the trams, this both have two used track gauges and two different heights of platforms, but only one rail yard, some tram lines are only one-tracked, ... there is three level metro station in Dortmund too. And it all is connected by the train system so frequently, that in the rest of Germany you don't find something like this in such a large area. Maybe in Berlin you find so good train system, but Berlin is not so big like this area and other described isn't there. And up described is only transport. The people in this area are more open, like in the rest of Germany, the nature (seas, rivers, woods, parks...) nearby the cities, culture,... this all is very interesting too. In short: I was absolutely delighted with the "Ruhrgebiet" and nearby cities. I've been there three times already and I still have something new to discover. 🙂

If you are ever in Essen again I strongly suggest you visiting Villa Hügel, the history behind that building is quite something as the family Krupp who build it really shaped Essen through their steel company. Also it is extremely pretty and includes a huge park aswell.

your jokes and humor is really cool. Keep doing it like that!

Erika! you are killing it! love your videos mate!

I had the opportunity to visit the Ruhr in 2020 and was surprised at how green the area was and that it was relatively clean. I made it to the major cities, but not the smaller ones that orbit around the larger cities; overall, it was a pleasant visit.

The Landschaftspark in Duisburg was used in the new Hunger Games movie for the District 12 scenery. You can actually see it in the trailer.

If you try next Time to visit Krefeld and the Citycenter ... don´t forget a Citypart named Linn with a nice Castle and a very sweet Oldtown

It's actually a very nice video, specially if you live nearby. You need to checkout Aachen or maybe Venlo which are on the opposite side of where you were. They are also more lively in my opinion. I will definitely go to Essen and Dortmund after watching this.

Great video as usual! Also, your pigeon edits/cuts were awesome!

Wow, trains being late surprises me. In the 80s and into the 90s I almost never experienced a train being late in Germany. Thanks for showing a region that I didn't have an opportunity to visit while I was living there!

Thank you for your video ❤❤ Love you😊❤

Wow that was like a Home-Alone-number of pigeons in Hagen :O

I'm so early, the video actually shows "No views". What an achievement.

Westfalenpark in Dortmund is a great place to visit and the Phoenixsee in the Hörde neighbourhood

I wanted to visit Düsseldorf last year, but the Bahn got stuck and so I ended up in Duisburg. Actually quite liked it. Beautiful town hall, interesting port and the mighty Rhine is always worth seeing.

Erika, you are definitely going somewhere. Through the ceiling that is, if you keep on doing such a great job with your videos 👍

A lot of Turkish people moved Duisburg at 60's for work. Very very nice video Erica 🍒 is Cevahir AVM the biggest shopping store in the Europe ‼️ i didnt know that but i miss a lot that. So much tourist has came and it's channged a lot , i dont want to go anymore.. 10:01 cars are everywhere in Istanbul, i have to go work by walking but traffic and cars feels stucked in the crowded 😢

I lived in Duisburg-Neudorf area for 3 years. Not that bad really, Duisburg Zoo is good and Stadtwald was my favorite hiking area, as it's very near my flat. A lot of interesting places to visit, like Tiger and Turtle, Landschaftspark, Biegerpark. And if you avoid certain areas, can be an affordable and charming option especially for those starting to live/work in NRW.

UND DAS RUHRGEBIET BIN ICH!

Your voice is soothing.

I really like the Pott-area. The cities may not be very nice, but there are several things to do and Industrial-culture is very interesting. There are several green spaces and you can canoe or even swim in the Ruhr-river

I really like your videos, please keep making them

Thank you for your sacrifice (using the German train system) And congrats on the camera upgrade!

As someone from dortmund, I liked your summary very much. It is indeed a city with many people and shops and some good looking buildings. Red things are cool too. But yeah I cant wait to move away

In the area of the CentrO Mall called "Neue Mitte" was a steel mill, the Gutehoffnungshütte (GHH) one of the origins of the MAN Company (they build trucks, buses, vans and huge diesel engines for ships nowadays), they sold their steel department "Ferrostaal" around 2010; the Gasometer now used for cultural purposes (mostly exhibitions) is one of the few relics. And the Centro's parking garages are free of charge, but when I was there, you had literally a traffic jam/queue of cars inside (I guess that would be even worse if you had to pay for parking and with the boom barriers). I was there just for two days around Herne, Gladbeck, Oberhausen and on the second day Duisburg and Bochum and it impressed me that there wasn't real empty area with nature etc. between most of these towns/cities, it felt like one huge conglomerate where one city just transitions into another, I see why this as a part of the Metropolitan Area Rhein-Ruhr has a total population of 10 Million, so roughly one eigth of Germany. I have plans to return there, got the 49€-Ticket since May and mostly used it for weekend daily trips yet (to Berlin, Leipzig, Magdeburg, Hanover, Minden), however it's not too far away from me (around 300 kilometres from Brunswick to Dortmund), I'm planning to take a week off in spring and go with bike and ride around there and do overnight stays in hostels. I'd call the ruhr area "run-down" in some ways like the buildings but in contrast especially the environment had become much better in the decades since the 80s especially through deindustrialization of course with a huge loss of employments (and the coke plant Kaiserstuhl III the most modern at the times was closed after a few years and most parts transfered to China while other coke plants here are pretty old, the one in Salzgitter was built before WWII and is still in service), however, rivers like the Emscher were extremly polluted (like the Ganges) really "dead" and are nowadays alive again.

First I was upset seeing my home region being called ugly. But then your pictures reminded me of the colorful bird and I kind of understand for some areas 😂

thanks for showing us the beauties of Germany, I only know München and Berlin, and the south of Bavaria. I hope to see some more in the future

Congrats on the new camera!

in Essen is the headquarter of ALDI North, in Muehlheim a.d. Ruhr (same region) the one of ALDI South ...

hello hello erika. Great video, I too was wondering: "why Hagen, why not Bochum?".

Wow!! Cool video! This is my least Germany's favorite region...way too crowded in my opinion. After watching your video I might have changed my mind a bit

Hagen is my birthplace. You should have mentioned there is a lot of Art nouveau from the begining of the 20th Century , e.g. the glass painting in the central station where you arrived. Hard to find, but still there.

The south of the Ruhrgebiet next to the river Ruhr is very nice. The landscape is very hilly (not so flat), there are beautiful reservoirs like the Baldeneysee in the south of Essen and some really pretty smaller towns like Hattingen. You would be very surprised.

If you more like older buildings and architecture you can find this in the ruhrarea too but more in smaller towns like Hattingen or at least not in the center like in Essen Kettwig or Herten Westerholt. And in general in the area many towns are more interesting when you visit not only the main center, which is often boring. Btw. There are some exceptions like Recklinghausen or Hattingen.

omg you're probably the first tourist in Hagen haha. But it's what I tell everyone always, the city centre is meh (although once you leave the station area and go the shopping area it's not too bad, at least compared to how it used to be - cars everywhere), but the outside parts are much nicer in my opinion. The open air museum (Freilichtmuseum) is worth a visit, there's a castle in Hohenlimburg, some nice parks and forests to hike in, the riverfront on the Ruhr is also quite nice. Also some smaller art and history museums, and areas like Eilpe or Wehringhausen have some old architecture. It's not super exciting, but also not the worst :)

Great video, as always! Would love to see you visit some US cities someday 😄

i love u Erika ...u r so great ...i love ur all videos

Personally i LOVE the industrial history and whats left of it in the Ruhepott. And like she said, the people are very genuine. Not so pretentious and very friendly under the ruff surface.

No sponsored segment this time? :( Those are my favourite parts 😫 Still a great video tho!!

As a proud resident of Bochum, I was hoping you would visit my city. But we got skipped :(

Raised in Oberhuasen, moved to Duisburg and work in Düsseldorf/ Duisburg. What treat to watch someone foreigner to expirience the cities

Educational💚

If you're surprised by the Haribo store in Oberhausen, you should visit the one in Solingen, which is literally next to one of the Haribo factories 😄

Love the new video and your new hair cut! Any new video game projects going on?

I love your vids, I enjoy watching them and knitting simultaniously

There are some nice-looking older buildings in Duisburg-Duissern. Also, you might not enter the stairs of Tiger&Turtle on sundays, but you can climb the little hill that they are on. My personal favourite area in Duisburg (beside the Innenhafen) is the lake-area (6-Seen-Platte). Duisburg is actually not too bad and not that ugly as people think :)

You should check out Oldenburg. In the war, it was barely destroyed and thus has kept almost all of its historical buildings and even its palace (which nowadays has a nice museum inside).

it also surprised me when you talking about german's late trains, interesting..

They filmed the District 12 scenes from the newest movie of Tribute of Panem in the Landschaftspark in Duisburg! It fits perfectly.

This was great to watch! My Grandma came from Bochum and I have visited there so the vibes were familiar to see 🥹 I never thought of the area as ugly when I visited from Canada, I was just thinking hell yeah Germany is beautiful and awesome.

The minimalistic buildings at the U tower in Dortmund are a school I used to work at nice to see it again

Regarding germanys public transport, especially railway system: Especially in the Ruhrgebiet and the whole of NRW, because density is so high and because investments in the trains here were so low the last 40 years, the entire system is rotten nowadays. Everything about it is bad. So yeah the more you have to change trains for your journey the more likely it is to end up stuck somewhere in nowhereland or in a city you never wanted to visit in the first place. ^^

finally a halfway good representation of the area I life in, and there are a lot more places worth a visit there ;) not necessarily beautiful but they're there ;)

6:20 we once famously had an elephant jump out of the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn. there's photos of it. pretty crazy.

Love your videos.

As someone coming from there I must say that you forgot visiting basically all of the big parks and nature places around, like Gruga and Baldeneysee in Essen, Westfalenpark and Phönixsee in Dortmund or 4-Lake-Area in Duisburg

You really have to see the „Landschaftspark Nord“ in Duisburg when it’s illuminated at night. It’s awesome

nice video! congrats on the new camera :D

You should visit Mönchengladbach, it’s by far worse than any town you have covered

Watching this video I'm amazed at how densely populated Germany is. I'm Latvian, and the fact that you're going to these random cities that I've never heard of and saying "it was pretty boring" and I'm looking at them like "wow, I'd be excited if I had this many big cities to go to in Latvia". Because most of these look about as exciting as the top 3 most populated cities in Latvia, and I've realized that Latvia is very empty...

I'm originally from the countryside in. The Sauerland south of the Ruhrgebiet. Closeby here is a village there that is also valled Hagen. Therefore we usually distinguish between Kuhschisshagen (Cowshithagen) and Taubenschisshagen (Pidgeonshithagen). Even the clubs in the village Hagen often refer to their home as Kuhschisshagen

good video thanks !

Many ppl love the industrial style but to ne this is very depressing! Once someone I dated assumed that Cologne was part of the Ruhrgebiet and that really hurt me (as someone from Cologne)!! 😭

I mean literally one of the few things I liked when living in Germany was visiting the Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord. It's just so amazing and different to walk in, you feel like you are in The Last of Us. For a jogger, a photographer and somebody that appreciates kinda post apocalyptic vibes, that park is really a must

I don't think I'll ever in my entire like visit this city, so thanks for showing me around