Unlike France and the United Kingdom, Germany's capital city, Berlin, does not enjoy the same dominance as Paris in France or London in the United Kingdom. It is true that Berlin is the capital and the most important city in the whole of Germany, but apart from it there are many other cities in Germany which are equally important. These cities are, and have always been, unique, have developed their own culture and cityscape, have a strong economic and political position in the life of the country, and are internationally renowned. Therefore, in the Germany tour, I will take you to enjoy some of these German cities, including Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich, which are the three largest and most famous cities besides the capital city of Berlin, as well as the philosophical city of Freiburg, the city of Cologne, which is home to the tallest spire in Europe, and the famous city of Kolumbia. and the famous Ruhr industrial region.
The first place we will visit is Freiburg. Freiburg is a small border town in the southwest corner of Germany, not far west of France and not far south of Switzerland.
Freiburg means Free Castle in German, and it has a long history of beautiful architecture, with many monuments in the city, such as the Münster Cathedral, the City Hall, and so on. Freiburg is an authentic forest city, surrounded on all sides by the Black Forest, with continuous forests inside and outside the city, covering the sky, and with nearby spas and well-equipped sanatoriums, it attracts a large number of tourists every year. However, we now want to put Freiburg to talk about, not because of its scenic beauty, but because Freiburg is not only a tourist city, or a famous university city, the city has a world-renowned University of Freiburg.
The University of Freiburg was founded by Archduke Albert of Austria in the 15th century, the existing students about 2 people, it has many famous departments, such as the Department of Economics, Department of Law and the Department of Medicine, modern economics in a Freiburg school from the school, its theory for the German economy after the Second World War to provide an important theoretical basis for the takeoff.
University of Freiburg is most famous for its philosophy department, the University of Freiburg Philosophy Department of modern Western philosophy has had a great impact on the two great masters of modern Western philosophy - Husserl and Heidegger, who founded the two major schools of Western philosophy, phenomenology and existentialism, respectively.
Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg, and is also known as the "secret capital", its importance in the history of Germany can be seen. Munich is located in southeastern Germany, nearly 50 kilometers south of the Alps, is the capital of Bavaria, now the population of Munich is about 1.3 million people, the city area of more than 300 square kilometers.
Munich is also known as the "super village", which is the most important feature of its cityscape. If you visit Munich, you will realize that it has a very different image compared to other cosmopolitan cities. One of the most obvious signs is that in Munich you will not see any skyscrapers made of reinforced concrete or modern buildings surrounded by glass walls. Munich's law stipulates that the height of buildings in the city should not exceed 36 meters, so the result of this regulation is that when you arrive in Tombigbee, it seems that you are not in one of the largest cities in Germany, but only in the more densely populated countryside. But see here everywhere is a large area of grass, woods, a park, simply countless, not far outside the city is a large forest. It is for this reason that Munich has earned the name "super countryside".
Tomb Munich is important not only because of its economic development, but also because it is a cultural capital. It has always been known as Germany's home of music and theater, and is especially close to the great Wagner, who premiered most of his works here. In this city of over a million people, there are more than 10 universities, two opera houses, 42 theaters, 45 museums, and 136 public libraries, and counting.
Munich's downtown is divided into the New Town and the Old Town, the New Town is on the east bank of the Isar River, mainly residential and commercial areas, and the Old Town is on the west bank, where most of Nihei's attractions are located. The center of the old city is Mary's Square, the square on the side of the old town hall, is a typical Gothic architecture, the middle of the towering spire is equipped with a large mechanical puppet chime, the puppet has a life-size, every day at 11:00 a.m. will ring the bell to tell the time. On the other side of the square is the Church of Our Lady. It is the symbol of Munich, built in the 15th century, the top of the tower has two round spires side by side, the north tower is up to a hundred meters high, their round roofs are very different from the usual Gothic architecture, is unique to Bavaria style. In a small island in the Isar River, there is a German museum, built in the early 20th century, divided into 30 museums, displaying the natural science and industrial technology achievements of various periods, the display area of 40,000 square meters, is the world's largest science and technology museum.
The best season to visit Munich is October every year, when the Munich Oktoberfest is held, which is known as the world's largest folk festival, where millions of tourists from all over the world drink the world's best German beer while singing and dancing.
There are more than 70 satellite towns in the suburbs of Munich, each with its own unique character, and one of them we have to visit is Dachau. One of the "sights" to see is the Dachau concentration camp. It is said that this is the first concentration camp established by the Nazis, compared to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, which slaughtered millions of Jews, the scale of Dachau is a small thing, but we can also see that the Nazis of the brutality of the year.
The reason for the importance of Munich in modern German history is also related to the Nazis. In the 1920s, Hitler joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), or Nazi Party for short, in Munich and became its leader, and in November 1923 he and his associates staged a revolt against the Bavarian authorities here, known as the "Beer Hall Putsch". After his defeat, Hitler was imprisoned, where he wrote "Mein Kampf", and on September 30, 1938, also in Tombigbee, the criminal "Tombigbee Agreement" was signed by Britain, France, Germany and Italy. The close relationship with the Nazis is one of Munich's "specialties", for which it was punished: in the last two years of the Second World War alone, the city was subjected to 66 large-scale bombing raids by the Allies, and half of the city was completely destroyed and reduced to a pile of rubble.
The official name of this Frankfurt is "Frankfurt am Main", Frankfurt is the abbreviation, and there is another Frankfurt on the Oder, "Frankfurt am Oder", an anonymous town with a population of just over 80,000 people. Frankfurt is a small, unnamed city with a population of just over 80,000 people. Frankfurt is located roughly in the geographic center of Germany, the Main River and the Rhine meet in its west about 30 kilometers, it is now the city area of about 250 square kilometers, the population of more than 600,000 people.
Compared with other German cities, Frankfurt has a distinctive feature: although it also has many attractions, but it is no longer primarily an ancient capital, and it is not by its monuments that people are attracted to the reason why it has an important position in Germany and even in Europe and the world by virtue of its modern charm. When we arrived in Frankfurt, still on the plane, from the air you can see the city's towering skyscrapers, and in New York and Shanghai to see nothing different. Most of these tall buildings are Frankfurt's major banks. Frankfurt city *** more than 350 banks, the world's major banks have branches here, Germany's central bank Deutsche Bank is located in the city center, which is like a central nervous system affecting the German and even the world's economy.
Perhaps more importantly, it is the future central bank of Europe. Now the European Union is stepping up its integration process, especially economic integration. An integrated Europe needs a single economic capital, and this is it. That's why Frankfurt, also known as the "Manhattan on the Main", is Europe's main financial center.
In addition to being the financial center of Europe, Frankfurt is also a famous fair city with 800 years of history. Every year here to hold more than ten large-scale international fairs, such as the annual spring and summer of the International Consumer Products Fair, the biennial international "sanitation, heating, air-conditioning" professional fair, the international clothing and textile professional fair, automotive exhibitions, book fairs, culinary technology exhibitions, and so on. Every exhibition season, Frankfurt presents a busy scene, the average number of people attending the fair is more than 1 million per year, the fair has become a major window for Germany to understand the world and the world to understand Germany. Frankfurt is also a city of history and culture. There are many places of interest in the city, with a very strong philosophical and literary tradition, which is mainly reflected in Goethe's former residence. "At noon on August 28, 1749, the clock struck twelve and I was born in Frankfurt am Main." This is Goethe's first sentence in one of his masterpieces and his autobiography, Poetry and Truth, which gets right to the point of where he came from.
If you go to Frankfurt, it's not the banks you'll see most, but Goethe. Goethe's shadow wanders everywhere, from houses, museums and libraries to the names of universities, many of which have been given Goethe's big name - for example, the University of Frankfurt is officially known as Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, which is Germany's largest university. As for tourist souvenirs sold in stores, they are almost exclusively Goethe.
Goethe's former residence is located in the center of the city, which is a mansion built with reddish-brown sandstone unique to the Rhine, *** divided into four floors: the first floor has a kitchen and living room, etc., display exquisite copper cooking utensils, and the wall is also hung with oil paintings: the second floor is a piano room and a banquet hall; the third floor has a Goethe's parents' bedrooms, Goethe's young lived in a small room is also in the same place. Corridor there is a large clock can show the sun and moon, still ticking, as if proud to tell you that Goethe listened to the same tune mile; fourth floor is Goethe's study, called "Poet's Workshop", there is an old wooden table, a look of old age, as if to imitate Goethe's creativity of the divine spirit.
In addition to Goethe in literature, Frankfurt is also famous in the history of philosophy. For example, from 1833 to 1860, the lonely Schopenhauer lived in Frankfurt for 27 years, and an important school of modern Western philosophy, the Frankfurt School, was born here, which combined Marxism with Western philosophy and produced many great philosophers, philosophical ideas and philosophical works.
Cologne is the fourth largest city in Germany, with an area of nearly 900 square kilometers and a population of about one million. Among all the German cities, Cologne's geographical location can be said to be unique: the Rhine River flows into the plains of northern Germany, and ocean-going vessels can sail from the North Sea all the way to here. It is only a few dozen kilometers north of Germany's largest industrial center of the Ruhr, not far to the west is Belgium and Luxembourg, the south is from the North German plains into the Middle German mountains of the main road, the traffic is extremely convenient.
Cologne is a beautiful city, full of gardens and green spaces, which we do not talk about, only the world-famous Cologne Cathedral. The best way to get to Cologne is by train, there are half a dozen railroads coming into Cologne from all sides. Still quite far from Cologne, you will see two towering giant spires and fan and stand, imposing, this is the Cologne Cathedral, that pair of spires nearly 160 meters high is Europe's tallest church steeple. To be walked to the cathedral near the time, you will be more savor its magnificent - people feel in front of it or God is how humble and small!
The church is divided into two major parts, the following is two floors, each floor is very high, the second floor above the steeple rises up into the sky, straight into the blue sky, high even a little breathtaking. The whole church is made of polished stone, and the size of the church is so huge that it is rare in the West. Because of its size is so huge, and every step of the building and decoration are extremely exquisite thing, coupled with the middle of the repeated obstacles to stop the construction of the building lasted for a long time is also rare: from the 13th century, the construction began, to the 19th century to be fully completed. The cathedral is now more than 140 meters long east to west and nearly 90 meters wide north to south, equivalent to a large soccer field, surrounded by green grass, flowers, the beauty of the intoxicated.
Into the church, inside, up to more than a hundred meters of the nave of the empty roof is also extremely high, people look up to the dazzling, here there is the famous crucifixion of Christ, it is the 11th century Germanic works, very real and touching. There are more than 500 steps in the church, about 30-story high, if you have the strength of this foot, pick up the stairs to reach the special observation deck, overlooking the Lemmen River like a jade belt from the feet around, further away is the vast mountains, picturesque scenery.
The Ruhr area is the world's largest and most famous industrial zone, located in the northwest of Germany, slightly in the middle of the place, administratively belongs to the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The Ruhr area is not a city, but by many developed industrial cities clustered into urban agglomerations, the largest is Duisburg and Dusseldorf, Essen, Dortmund and other large cities and dozens of small towns, they *** with the same composition of the entire Ruhr area, a total area of about 5,000 square kilometers, with a population of about 6 million people, accounting for about 7% of the total population of Germany, the density of the population of more than 3,000 people per square kilometer, is Germany's most densely populated area. With a population density of more than 3,000 people per square kilometer, it is the most densely populated region in Germany. Although there are so many names, in fact, when you walk around the Ruhr region, it is difficult to see the distance between these cities, because they have been linked together, making the Ruhr region a unified district, a huge "city belt".
The reason why the Ruhr area has become a huge industrial zone, there are two main reasons: First, here there is the Leimen River, the Ruhr River, the Ems River and so on, forming a dense water network, providing a convenient and inexpensive means of navigation and a large number of people in the production of water for life; Second, here is very rich in coal resources, and is the quality of the hard coal, the reserves of more than 20 billion tons. The coalfields are spread all over the region and are the best raw material and power for industrial development in the Ruhr area.
Coal and iron and steel industry is the leading sector of the Ruhr industry, there are six annual steelmaking capacity of more than 4 million tons of mega iron and steel enterprises. Machine building and chemical industry are also large industrial sectors here. The electric power industry is also very well developed due to the huge consumption of electricity by industry. In fact, due to the full range of industrial sectors here, the Ruhr area has formed two complete industrial chains, the first of which is: coal mining → coking → power generation → ironmaking → steelmaking → steel processing → machine manufacturing; the second is: coal mining → coking → coal chemical industry. Due to the close proximity of the factories in each link, it is possible to greatly reduce various costs and increase efficiency.
Hamburg is Germany's window to the world, the second largest city and the largest port, with a population of more than 1.6 million, Hamburg is also Germany's largest economic center, the per capita gross national product in the country's first, the transportation and trade of the developed crown in the country. Its port area of about 100 square kilometers, of which the water accounted for about 40 square kilometers, dock shoreline length of about 40 kilometers, there are dozens of extremely modern advanced sea berths and a variety of professional terminal.
Hamburg's land transportation is very developed, the outskirts of Europe's largest train yard, there is a very long port special railroads, and the national railroad network connected to the land and water transport, very convenient. Hamburg also has two airports, the northern Fallsbüttel Airport is one of the busiest international airports in Europe. Hamburg's underground transportation is also very well developed, it has a well-connected subway, there are several underground tunnels through the Elbe River. Hamburg also has a well-developed industry, and it is one of the largest industrial cities in Germany, with a full range of industrial sectors. Hamburg also has an equally well-developed press and culture, and is the center of the national press and publishing industry, with the headquarters of Germany's largest news agency, Deutsche Presse-Agentur: it also has six major museums and many more small and medium-sized museums, among which the Hamburger Kunsthalle is one of Europe's largest and most important art museums; Hamburg also has a strong musical tradition, and is the home of Mendelssohn and Brahms.
Hamburg is so economically advanced, but it doesn't look like a hip, modern metropolis. If you come to Hamburg for the first time, the first thing that strikes you is that it really does look like Venice, because Hamburg is also an authentic water city. Hamburg's city center is a dam dammed into a considerable area of the lake, the beautiful Lombardy Bridge across the lake, it will be divided into two lakes, called Inner and Outer Ulster Lake. The forks of the river in Hamburg are long and winding, and that bridge is particularly numerous, much more so than in the Italian water city of Venice. There are also boats like Venice, in the sunny days, sit on the boat, shuttling in the streets and alleys, sometimes modern skyscrapers, sometimes ancient old houses, the feeling as if it is driving a time machine, between history and reality it.