VILLA HÜGEL
We made a quick trip to Essen in Germany (Ruhrgebiet, Nord-Rhein-Westfalen) last weekend.
Our main purpose was to visit the William Kentridge retrospective exhibition in Folkwang Museum (wonderful).
But on the second day of our minitrip, we enjoyed fairly good indian summer weather with a bike ride with our little folding bikes around the BaldeneySee south of Essen.
This lake was created with a powerdam on the Ruhr river, and it sits between a few villages, but also for a large part on the huge estate of Villa Hügel.
This is the slightly megalomaniacal villa built by the dynasty of the Krupp-family, in the peak years of their industrial empire, when their factories surrounding Essen occupied almost tenfold the surface of the town itself (and with further factories and shipwharfs dotted elsewhere in Germany and beyond). They made good money from machines of war, U-boats, train locomotifs etc.
After the bike ride, we visited the Villa (at least the "Kleines Haus", i.e. the smaller of two wings), with an interesting historical exhibition on the family, their industrial empire and the Hügel estate (and with a few short but very necessary mentions of their role as armament suppliers in subsequent wars). And we rounded off the day with a walk through the villa park (on a few hills, descending towards the lake. On a very well chosen spot, a peaceful statue "Weidendes Pferd" was placed.
These are two images of this statue and the Villa Hügel in the background, one shot right after the other, and cropped to different ratios.

