I'm taking you on a little tour of the center of Essen, toward the area called Rüttenscheid today.
This used to be a girls University preparatory school, then became a mixed prep school and has been somewhat in limbo in recent years after it was closed because there wasn't any need for so many different secondary schools in the center of Essen. Other schools like the Burggymnasium, the previous all-boys counterpart, now also a regular school, are using the building now.
The former Deutsche Bahn (formerly the state train company) head quaters with a statue of Bismarck in fromt of it:
Protestant church with a very nice portal:
This building was completely renovated a few years ago, the only left the old facade standing and built a modern office building inside it.
The newly reopened Folkwang Museum:
It was enlarged and renovated after the original concept, using a lot of natural light. It was reopened this year in time for the European Capital of Culture year and is currently doing an exihibition of all the famous and not quite as famous artworks it has in its collection, many of which were banned during the NS regime. It finally has enough space to get a lot of stuff out of storage. There are also many world famous exhibts here, with art work from private collections and other museums, that are shown only on few museums around the world. Esp. since this is a long weekend, there are many visitors not only from this area, but also from the rest of Germany and neighboring countries like the Netherlands, France or Belgium.
After getting lucky snatching a parking space in Rüttenscheid on market day, we passed this elementary school:
And here's the market:
Turkish or Libanese stands with bread, olives and spicy cheese are uite popular.
Yum, all that bread!
See the Easter bunny?
On the way back we passed this great shop window:
