Duisburg full of surprises with diving, bridges and ruins

By Christoph Driessen Nov 29, 2011, 19:27 GMT

Duisburg, Germany - Duisburg is probably best known in Germany for its stubbornly high unemployment rate, building scandals and, more tragically, last year's Love Parade catastrophe in which 21 people died.

However the former steel-producing hub situated in the industrial Ruhr Area in North Rhine-Westphalia is making serious and, at times, innovative efforts to shrug off its negative image.

For example, the city with a population of half a million is home to the Gasometer TauchRevier scuba-diving centre, a former gas collection vessel that has been converted into Europe's largest artificial diving pool.

The gasometer has a diameter of 45 metres and sinks to a depth of 13 metres, where divers can explore a shipwreck and an artificial reef. The facility attracts divers from across the region and is also used as a training location for police and fire service divers.

Located in the Duisburg-Nord landscape park, the gasometer is a perfect example of how Duisburg is trying to breathe life into one of its old industrial areas where once over 100,000 people worked.

Today, the view from the 70-metre-high gasometer is mostly green as nature is reclaiming the area.

Water is an ever-present feature of Duisburg, which has the world's biggest inland harbour and is criss-crossed by canals, bridges and locks. Indeed, Duisburg is almost worth a visit just for the numerous imposing iron and steel bridges that were built during a period when these raw materials were in plentiful supply here.

Tourists arriving in Duisburg by car should park at the Binnenschifffahrtsmuseum (Inland Shipping Museum) where they can learn about shipping history from the Stone Age to the present day. The exhibit consists of a multimedia experience on three floors with many detailed models and numerous hands-on exhibits.

From here, tourists can proceed to explore the city on foot, taking in the industrial panorama of smokestacks and the never-ending procession of freighters making their way down the Lower Rhine.

Parts of the city centre around the inland harbour have benefited from huge regeneration projects and resemble Hamburg with their marinas and renovated warehouses. Just a few hundred metres away however, many buildings in the city's shopping district lie empty.

It is clear that Duisburg, situated at the meeting point of the Rhine and Ruhr rivers, has much potential. The city is already worth a visit, but it will be even more interesting to see how it develops in the coming years.