Shaft XII — Attraction in Essen

I wasn't impressed by it. First, I had more expectation from an UNESCO World Heritage Site... As the website said, it supposed to have English guided tour. When I got there, I found out there is only in German. OK... Then, the lady from the tickets desk told us that the museum had inscription in German and in English. Nope. Many are only in German! A tourist cannot learn every language of every country visited, so maybe the organizers will start thinking globally, not locally, and write everything in English, too. Then, last piece of disappointment, there is no mine to visit, only the Museum and the site itself, from outside. Which could be indeed impressive for someone coming from out of space, but for me (I'm coming from Brasov, Romania - one of the top city of dead industry in the whole world), there is nothing new: ugly industrial buildings, big piles of iron, mud and fences... what's to see? Only the Museum is something worth to see, even is pretty expensive for what it shows - you can find all together (kind of meaningless) trails from the past and from the present. So for the Mammoth skeleton, the meteorite, and other pieces, I can give a star....

The visit to the design museum is very interesting, it is the largest museum in Europe. It's a very interesting visit because the modern design museum is inside an old iron factory and it's wonderful to be able to see what the old factory was like inside and at the same time enjoy the modern design exhibition. This weekend Street food was held within the museum, in the large courtyard specifically and the selection of street food stalls was very wide. A very interesting visit, but next time I will take a guided tour...

Zollverein is a must to visit place around Essen. It is very well preserved and definitely deserves the UNESCO's "brand".

I really recommend to go on tours while the guide tours explain the history and details that is not possible to get without their knowledge (maybe I had the luck of they were former workers).

I posted a lot of pictures about Zollverein, but unfortunately it is not "attached" to this review.

Zollverein deserves more than one day of visit, while there are so many...