Radeberger 'Win your trip to Germany' Sweepstakes

Radeberger Pilsner is offering a chance to win a trip to Germany here until June 30, 2013. The sweepstakes is only open to legal residents of CA, CT, FL, IL, MA, NJ, NY, PA, TX and WA who are 21 years of age and older. Ten winners will be selected and each prize winner gets 2 roundtrip coach tickets to Germany, hotel accommodations for two for 5 nights at sponsor-selected hotels, and limited transportation/tours/meals while in Germany with the trip tentatively scheduled to take place August-September 2013. The tour will take you to Dresden, Radeberg and Berlin so if you've been waiting to experience Germany, this is your chance!

Panoramic View of Düsseldorf

Here's a video I took along the lively boardwalk in Düsseldorf next to the Rhine river.

Sunday in Düsseldorf's Aldstadt

After taking an awesome first look at the Altstadt, the next day was Sunday in Düsseldorf and it got off to a great start with some beautiful blue skies. We headed near the Schadow Arkaden area, which is a large and famous shopping mall in Düsseldorf, which was unfortunately closed on Sunday. However, we did happen to catch a marathon going around the area that day.

Food in Düsseldorf

There were a large selection of restaurants to pick from within the Altstadt.  For lunch, I went with Benders Marie, the city's oldest mussel restaurant.  Here I also chose to have some mussel soup (which was quite good although a bit on the salty side) and some mussels in white wine and onions, which is a more French style way to make the mussels.

Carlsplatz Market

The Carlsplatz Market, located not far from Königsallee in the vicinity of Old Town (Aldstadt), is a wonderfully diverse open air market consisting of a number of stalls selling everything from fruits and vegetables to sausages and cheeses.

Schloss Benrath

Schloss Benrath (Benrath Palace) lies on the southern outskirts of Düsseldorf and is easily reachable by either tram, metro or local train. As I had stayed at the Ibis Düsseldorf Zentrum which was rather close to the train station, I took the train straight there. On the left is one of the vending machines at the station.

First Day in Aldstadt @ Düsseldorf

So while I was planning out my eastern European trip, seeing as how I was flying into Amsterdam, the only reasonable way I could get from or to Krakow (one of the must-see cities on this itinerary) was from Dortmund airport flying Easyjet. Having done my research though, Dortmund, being a relatively small town, didn't have as much to see to warrant 3 days between flying into Amsterdam and flying out of Dortmund.  So I picked Düsseldorf, a nearby city to Dortmund to do some travelling. It wasn't until later that I realized Köln, better known to me as Cologne, was just as near; as I had really wanted to see the Cathedral at Köln.  But since I didn't recognize its other name, I ended up missing out =( oh well, next time!

In any case, Düsseldorf was an excellent pick as the first German city for me to visit. Fresh off the train from Amsterdam, I started off the afternoon in the Altstadt (Old Town) at the Heinrich-Hein-Allee metro stop.