Kaiserswerth an essential part of any Dusseldorf trip

By Bernd F. Meier Aug 10, 2010, 13:23 GMT

Dusseldorf - Visitors to Dusseldorf in western Germany who are looking to make their way to the city's Kaiserswerth district can either take the U79 tram north or hop on the Michaela II ferry along the Rhine to their destination.

On hot summer days hundreds of day-trippers are drawn to the area where in the year 700 AD the monk Saint Suitbertus founded a Benedictine abbey at Werth. 'It's Dusseldorf's oldest quarter,' reveals tour guide Jutta Thym, who provides several tours a month around Kaiserwerth's historical sights.

The area blossomed after the Kaiserpfalz (temporary seat of the Holy Roman Emperor) was built in 1045 and in 1174 Friederick I Barbarossa moved the Rhine customs collection to Kaiserswerth.

The imperial palace once controlled the Rhine and is accessible in summer although all that remains of the river bulwark are its five- metre-thick walls. Nearby is the St Suitbertus Basilica on Stiftsplatz, a triple-naved Romanesque pillar basilica with a gilded shrine holding the relics of Saint Suitbertus.

A few steps further is a house dating back to 1250, just one of six Romanesque houses still in existence in Germany. Also worth visiting are Kaiserswerth's picturesque baroque houses from the 17th and 18th centuries.

The Stiftsplatz is considered one of the most beautiful spots on the Lower Rhine with seven lime trees depicting the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. Four further trees in the shadow of the church represent the Protestant faiths.

The area south of the market square is predominantly Catholic while the northern section has been overwhelmingly Protestant since the 19th century.

'In 1822, a young pastor named Theodor Fliedner came to Kaiserswerth,' explains Thym. 'He founded the hospital and the deaconess clinic where Florence Nightingale was educated in 1849.'

Nightingale's work as a nurse with wounded British soldiers during the Crimean War laid the foundation for the forming of the Red Cross and the Florence Nightingale deaconess clinic in Kaiserswerth remains one of the most important hospitals in the region.

In both World Wars there was also a great military hospital in Kaiserswerth, which now has a population of 8,000.

The district became part of Dusseldorf in 1929 and is a favourite location for weekend trips. Lying just 15 kilometres from Dusseldorf's city centre, it can be easily reached by bicycle or even by tram.

Those visitors looking for peace and quiet, however, should plan their trips for early in the week. Some travel to Kaiserswerth for culinary rather than cultural reasons to eat in Jean-Claude Bourgueil's renowned Im Schiffchen gourmet restaurant.

At the other end of the scale, there is also a takeaway called Berliner Imbiss which supposedly offers the best currywuerst sausages outside the German capital.