"I have lived in many places, but for me there is nothing more beautiful than my Ruhrpott," Gudrun Grumich says with conviction. This year, she bought a season ticket for excursion boats in the Ruhr region. Almost every day, she and her husband Rainer board the ship, drink a wheat beer and spend two hours looking at the Ruhr from the water.
Excursion boat traffic on the Ruhr has a long tradition; as early as 1927, the first two ships took off. The rush and the enthusiasm were so great that the fleet was quickly enlarged. After an interruption during the Second World War - the ships were confiscated and used in the Netherlands - the popular passenger ships returned to the Ruhr.
Back then and now - a boat trip impressively shows the diversity of the whole region: idyllic green riverside landscapes, gray industrial towers, inland ports, locks or lakes at sunset. After all, the Ruhr as the main artery and the canals originally dug for industry not only connect the cities of the region with each other, but also embody the idea of the Ruhr as a metropolis like hardly anything else.
