Hello and hallo!
It’s August 2020, and with virus rates unfortunately starting to creep back up again in Europe,
this might be my last chance for an international trip this summer,
so I’ve come to Germany.
Yes, Germany.
I’ve always thought it’s kind of underrated as a holiday destination,
and I’m not just saying that because 10% of you watching this channel are Germans
I mean it’s partly because of that
but it’s not just because of that.
Anyway, honestly, there is so much good stuff here.
For example, Germany has 46 UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
That puts them fourth in the world, behind only China, Italy and Spain,
and the list includes beautiful buildings like Cologne Cathedral,
stunning scenery like the Rhein Valley,
and Neuschwanstein, the magical Bavarian castle that inspired Disney, isn’t even on there.
So I thought today we’d go and explore one of Germany’s World Heritage Sites.
And the one I’ve chosen…
is this.
*Ludicrously overblown death metal version of the intro from O Fortuna by Carl Orff*
Right, shall we pop in?
This is the Völklinger Hütte,
an absolutely monster disused ironworks in Saarland,
which is the bit of Germany that is right next to the border with France,
and in no coincidence at all,
only two hours from my flat in Paris on a TGV.
For over 100 years, the workers here turned iron ore into steel,
with huge blast furnaces belching smoke into the Saarland skies,
but they were hit hard by the international steel crisis of the 1970s
and the entire site was eventually closed down in 1986
and replaced by a new, modern, more efficient steelworks next door.
Often when a place like this closes down
it would be considered an unwanted eyesore on valuable land,
and it would be demolished and lost forever.
But here they said no; this is an important piece of industrial heritage.
And they’ve not just preserved it,
they’ve re-opened it as a visitor attraction.
Which means you can explore the whole thing
and we are going to need a montage.
The hard hat is actually quite useful...
because there's a lot of low bars here
I don't know if it come across on camera just how big this place is
it is absolutely enormous!
And you can kind of just go everywhere... just explore
it's amazing. I love it!
For anyone who wants to learn more about the science behind all this,
there is a brilliant exhibition here called the Ferrodrom
- where they explain how the whole process works from start to finish -
which I completely failed to film.
I don’t know whether it was closed on the day I visited
or I just missed the entrance because I was bouncing around like an excited 6 year old
on a climbing frame,
but sorry about that,
and hey if you wanted 100% professionalism
you wouldn’t be watching YouTube would you.
And I’m not making excuses but there are 7 kilometres of visitor paths and walkways here
– 7 kilometres!
You could spend 5 hours exploring this place and still miss something.
I did.
And there are whole other sections that I haven’t shown you,
mostly because they were indoors and the lighting in these vast halls of machinery is kind of moody,
which looks great in real life, but unfortunately not so good on camera.
But it is worth seeing the artworks here that remember the darkest period in Volklingen’s history,
which happened during – take a wild guess – World War II
when 12,000 foreigners and prisoners of war were forced to work in appalling conditions,
leading to the deaths of 250 people.
There’s plenty more artwork to see, if you like that kind of thing;
the back end of the site is dotted with all sorts of random installations,
while the old storage shed has been turned into a gallery;
at the moment it’s housing an exhibition of African photography,
which with typical German artistic flair they’ve called...
Africa As Seen By Photographers.
And back in those happy times of any year before 2020
they used to host an electronic music festival here every summer
and of course it looks absolutely incredible.
But after all that walking and climbing,
and all we’ve learned today about how an ironworks works,
it’s time for me to go to the café
and sit down with a nice cold drink of – you guessed it –
Pepsi.
If you’ve ever wanted to explore an enormous abandoned ironworks
then Völklingen is everything you’ve dreamed of and more;
it’s all the thrills of urban exploration
without the danger, the criminal trespassing, and the fear of getting caught
(so arguably without three of the thrills of urban exploration).
Anyway, an adult ticket costs 17€,
but if you have any kind of serious physical handicap, it’s free
and the vast majority of the site is wheelchair accessible
the only thing that isn’t is the viewing platform right at the top.
Here’s another gratuitous shot of a train,
thank you for watching,
and I will see you soon.