Greenish lighting, the name Erin - you might not immediately think of Ireland, but you would be right. At the end of the 19th century Irish mining entrepreneur Mulvany merged several claims in the Castrop area and named the new large claim after the goddess Erin, whose name is a form of the Gaelic Eire: Ireland.
The mines have a long history. Initially used to mine hard coal, the owners changed several times over the course of the following year until it was shut down in 1982 after almost 120 years of mining activity.
The disused coal mine Zeche Zollern in Dortmund is one of the most architecturally remarkable pits in the Ruhr area. The park-like facility with its impressive Art Nouveau buildings still shows today that it was built as a model colliery around 1900 and was intended to show both economic strength and progress.
We visited the facility with our friends from Herne, the photographers Renate and Jürgen Saibic, whom we met many years ago on Easter Island in Chile.
In Rjukan, everything revolves around electricity, just as we like it :-) The Vemork hydroelectric power station, built in 1911, was the largest in the world at the time and right in town you can see the Såheim hydroelectric power station today.
The Gaustabanen take you up the 1,900 meter high Gaustatoppen. We are lucky, the railways and access have just started seasonal operation and our summit ascent leads first over serpentines to 1170 m, then with railway 1 horizontally 850 meters into the mountain and from there with a funicular at 39° 1050 m wide and 850 meters high.
