From travelagentcentral.com article 12/17/2009 Next year, Europe will have three capitals of culture in Istanbul, Turkey, Essen, Germany and Pecs, Hungary. Like the Olympics, the resulting attention often brings infrastructure projects that revitalize the local economy while showcasing creativity.
Essen is officially a cultural capital for 2010 but the events will take place over the entire Ruhr region. This once blighted area is showcasing its achievement in transforming a vast industrial region into a hub of artistic creation and beauty. The Gasometer in Oberhausen, for example, once a gas storage tank is now a vast exhibit space hosting “Out of this World,” the world’s largest walk through recreation of our solar system, through 2010. In Mülheim, a water tank now hosts the world’s largest walk-in camera obscura, a darkened room where images from 10 miles away are projected onto a huge disk.
Other highlights of the region include the Center for International Light Art, and the Zeche Zollverein, once Germany’s largest coal mine, now a museum with coal-blackened walls. Duisberg’s Landscape Park, a former iron works, is a multi-use park where rock climbers ascend the walls of former storage bunkers, bicyclists ride down elevated paths that once served raw material-laden trains, and skin divers descend into an water-filled gas tank filled with a sunken plane and car. Lots of good hotels, restaurants and a bustling nightlife draw a diverse, hip crowd.
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![The coat of arms of the city of Essen is a heraldic peculiarity. Granted in 1886, it is a so-called Allianzwappen (arms of alliance) and consists of two separate shields under a single crown. Most other coats of arms of cities show a wall instead of a crown. The crown, however, does not refer to the city of Essen itself, but instead to the secularized ecclesiastical principality of Essen under the reign of the princess-abbesses. The dexter (heraldically right) escutcheon shows the double-headed Imperial Eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, granted to the city in 1623. The sinister (heraldically left) escutcheon is one of the oldest emblems of Essen and shows a sword that people believed was used to behead the city's patrons Saints Cosmas and Damian. People tend to connect the sword in the left shield with one found in the Cathedral Treasury. This sword, however, is much younger [10]. A slightly modified and more heraldically correct version of the arms can be found on the roof of the Handelshof hotel near the main station.](http://www.2010essen.info/uploads/extgallery/public-photo/thumb/thumb_574px-Wappen_Stadt_Essen_DE_svg_1_7b61f.png "The coat of arms of the city of Essen is a heraldic peculiarity. Granted in 1886, it is a so-called Allianzwappen (arms of alliance) and consists of two separate shields under a single crown. Most other coats of arms of cities show a wall instead of a crown. The crown, however, does not refer to the city of Essen itself, but instead to the secularized ecclesiastical principality of Essen under the reign of the princess-abbesses. The dexter (heraldically right) escutcheon shows the double-headed Imperial Eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, granted to the city in 1623. The sinister (heraldically left) escutcheon is one of the oldest emblems of Essen and shows a sword that people believed was used to behead the city's patrons Saints Cosmas and Damian. People tend to connect the sword in the left shield with one found in the Cathedral Treasury. This sword, however, is much younger [10]. A slightly modified and more heraldically correct version of the arms can be found on the roof of the Handelshof hotel near the main station.")
