Dortmund

... is the ugliest and most disorganized big town in Germany I have ever been to. Nevertheless, the socialist town government forces you to pay an extra tax of 12 % of your rent just for living there.

The information on the server of Dortmund uses to be misleading and outdated.

Essen is an even bigger city only half an hour by train and a bit nicer. The next town with an international airport is Düsseldorf, which also has a good opera house (together with Duisburg) that calls itself German Opera at the Rhine.

The central train station is one of the best places in Dortmund because you can leave the town most efficiently from there - contrary to the other places where public transport is available only during working hours and the constant traffic jams do not allow you to drive anywhere.

The two positive things I can say about Dortmund are: most of the people were friendly and uncomplicated and in the fish restaurant in the basement of Karstadt it was possible to get really good food (only place in town).

Recommended Local Culture

• Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum Duisburg: The museum itself is one of the very rare examples of good architecture in the 2nd half of the 20th century in Germany.
• Folkwang Museum Essen: Closed for reconstruction until February 2010. Great Paintings. To name only a few: Gauguin's "Horsemen at the beach" and "Contes barbares" (both 1902). Also Feininger's Gelmeroda IX. Some Spitzwegs and Monet's Cathedral in shining fog.
• Museum Mülheim: Who would expect masterpieces like Feininger's "Red Tower II (Halle)", Beckmann's "Quappi with parrot", or Nolde's "John the Baptist" in this dull town. Since the paintings are visiting nicer places regularly, phone before your visit. The correct phone number used to be +49 208 455 4170. All paintings have good light and I had no problems with mirroring glass.
• Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal: Wuppertal is one of the most dreadful towns in Germany, and the comedians' standard metaphor for how horrible it can be to live in Germany. Nevertheless, it hosts the most fascinating collection in the Rhein/Ruhr area from Coblenz over Cologne to Dortmund, including my favorite Feininger painting showing the Marktkirche in front of the red tower in Halle. Most incredible painting! The church and the tower act like two sounds not as two objects. Wow! The collection should be moved to a nicer place such as Duisburg or Cologne.

Other Local Culture

• Eisenbahnmuseum Bochum-Dahlhausen: Lots of railroad cars and engines, but nothing really fascinating.
• Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund: It was closed for reconstrution and moving to Dortmunder U for many many years, and I have never been to Dortmund since then. Only less than one third (and most of the time nothing) of the collection of German expressionistic painting used to be exhibited. All the interesting ones behind glass with shining white walls around, so that you do not see nothing. This was really a pity, but typical for Dortmund.
• Kunstsammlung Düsseldorf: The Slevogt/Klee exhibition in 2014 was one of the most lousy ones of my life. It must have taken them a long time of experimentation to make all these great paintings to be so invisible and look so poor. For instance, the harbor of Syracuse used to shine in the Pfalzgalerie in Kaiserslautern in the daylight room every sunny day in all colors of the rainbow, but it was just a dull blue painting in Düsseldorf, without giving any idea on what it was about.
• Museum Hagen: Closed for reconstruction until February 2010. Nice collection (esp. Rohlfs, one Feininger), but very small because the original Folkwang collection was sold to Essen (cf. above) and the Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) interior (van de Velde) was purposely destroyed. Oh what a shame! (But was it not Hagen who also made the treasure of the Nibelungen disappear from mankind?) Nice re-made Jugendstil interior, but paintings are far too dark!
• Museum Münster: Feininger's greatest beach painting "Duene am Abend" (1927) is hanging too low and has a strong black shadow from its frame in the upper part.