He-Man Goes Ruhrpott – Cora’s Adventures at the 2025 Los Amigos Masters of the Universe Convention in Neuss, Part 1: It’s Roadtrip Time Again

Last year, I attended the Los Amigos Masters of the Universe convention in Neuss, which also involved a rather epic 300 kilometers there and back roadtrip.

I enjoyed the con and the trip a lot, so I decided to go again this year. And because I wanted more time at the con and more time to explore the Ruhrgebiet with its many sights, I booked a hotel to stay overnight. So it was time to return to the Ruhrpott.

He-Man goes Ruhrpott

As for why He-Man is posing with a mug, “Ruhrpott” or just “Pott” is an affectionate name for the Ruhrgebiet. However, the term “Pott” can also refer to a large mug. Hence, the mug in the photo (more on how I came by it later) is both a souvenir from the Ruhrpott as well as a literal Ruhrpott.

This year, the Los Amigos convention took place on Saturday, June 7, which happens to be part of the long Pentecost holiday weekend, which means hotels and roads would be busier than usual. What is more, there were all sorts of fairs, festivals and other events happening this weekend all over Germany, including a major rock festival.

Because I expected the roads to be busy, I got up at five AM and set off at shortly before six. The sun was already up, because it currently rises at 5:08 in the morning.

Autobahn A1 and Dammer Berge

The trip to Neuss was mostly the same as last year. I drove onto Autobahn A 1 at Groß Mackenstedt and followed the A1 through the Wildeshauser Geest nature park, across the Teutoburg Forest, through the Münsterland and into the Ruhrgebiet.

The Autobahn was indeed fuller than it usually is early on a Saturday morning and there were a lot of trucks trying to make it to their destination or at least out of Germany, before they would be grounded for two days, because trucks are not allowed to drive on German roads on Sundays and public holidays, unless they are transporting perishable goods.

Nonetheless, I made good time. Part of the reason was that the 33-kilometer monster construction zone between the exits Lohne/Dinklage and Bramsche is gone now. There still are a few smaller constructions zones between Lohne/Dinklage and Bramsche, mostly where bridges across the Autobahn are in the process of being replaced.

My first pit stop was at service station Dammer Berge with its iconic bridge restaurant.  No, not for breakfast – I learned my lesson last time. Not to mention that it was 6:45 AM, when I reached Dammer Berge, and too early for breakfast. However, I was feeling some pressure in my bladder from an early morning mug of tea and decided to peruse the restroom at Dammer Berge. I could probably have held out until service station Tecklenburger Land, but I still have a soft spot for the unique structure that is Dammer Berge.

The iconic bridge restaurant of service station Dammer Berge on a rather gloomy day.

In spite of the early hour, the service station and adjacent parking lot were already quite busy. There was a busload full of young people who were playing techno music in the parking lot at an annoying high volume.

I did my business at the bathroom and also paid a brief visit to the Autobahn chapel (for more about Autobahn chapels, see this post) at Dammer Berge.  I left a message in the guest book – something I usually do at Autobahn chapels – and put a Euro in the collection box, though I couldn’t light a candle, because there was no lighter at the chapel and I didn’t have one either.

The Autobahn chapel at service station Dammer Berge, built in 1970. This was the first ecumenic Autobahn chapel in Germany – previous chapels were either Catholic or Lutheran, even though denominational differences are silly, particularly for chapels aimed at travellers.

And this is what the Autobahn chapel Dammer Berge looks like on the inside.

Autobahn chapels are calm and quiet places. Even the loud techno music of the busload of young folks did not penetrate into the chapel, even though the bus was parked only a hundred meters or so away.

I have now visited three of the 44 Autobahn chapels in Germany, namely Dammer Berge, Roxel/Münsterland and Kassel/Lohfelden. I also missed at least two during my trip to Hanau last December, because I had no idea they existed. I hope to visit more, because I like the concept of Autobahn chapels as an update of the roadside shrines and chapels from days of old. Several Autobahn chapels, including Dammer Berge, are also specifically dedicated to the victims of traffic accidents.

Before setting off again, I also snapped this photo of He-Man posing on a picknick table at service station Dammer Berge. I wanted to position him, so the bridge restaurant would be visible in the background, but then a gust of wind knocked over the figure, two guys having a smoking break became unduly interested in what I was doing and a few drops of rain landed on me, my phone and He-Man.

He-Man at service station Dammer Berge, because even Champions of Grayskull occasionally need a pit stop.

As for why I took along a He-Man figure – this is the Masters of the Universe Classics He-Man BTW – I hoped that there would be opportunities for toy photography on route.

Just Driving in the Rain

The few droplets that had landed on me, my phone and He-Man at service station Dammer Berge has turned into a full-blown rainfall by the time I reached Osnabrück. This wasn’t unexpected – the weather forecast had said that there would be showers all weekend long – but since I’d even had a bit of sunshine around Wildeshausen, I hope I’d be spared rain until I was safely inside the convention center.

Alas, no such luck. When I crossed Teutoburg Forest, low-hanging clouds were hanging between the tree and hill tips. Of course, these damp, dark and foggy woodlands already plagued and eventually doomed the five legions of the Roman army under the command of Publius Quinctilius Varus back in 9 AD.

By now, it was half past seven and the perfect time to find a spot for breakfast. So I drove onto a rest area to check Google Maps for bakeries close to the Autobahn. Alas, I was in the void that is the Münsterland, where there are few Autobahn exits and even fewer towns and villages. Of course, those towns and villages have bakeries, but the towns here are usually quite a bit away from the Autobahn, requiring a longer side trip than I was prepared to take.

However, I remembered that last year on my way back from the Los Amigos convention, I had coffee and cake at a nice bakery café in a retail park directly by the Autobahn at intersection Kamener Kreuz. That would be the perfect place to have breakfast, so I headed onwards towards Kamener Kreuz.

Breakfast at Kamener Kreuz

Kamener Kreuz is where Autobahn A1 and Autobahn A2, one of the main North-South and one of the main East-West routes for all of Germany and Europe, intersect. It used to be infamously busy and prone to traffic jams, though the situation is much improved by now, and is also frequently referenced in (West) German pop culture. Even if – like me – you live nowhere near it, you’ve heard of the Kamener Kreuz. Fun fact: As a kid, I always assumed the Kamener Kreuz was named after a woman named Carmen, but it’s really named after the town of Kamen.

The Kamener Kreuz is also the gateway to the Ruhrgebiet, though the Ruhrgebiet officially begins in Hamm, one Autobahn exit before Kamener Kreuz. However, Hamm is quite a bit away from the Autobahn and Kamener Kreuz is also where the tangle of Autobahnen all named A-fortysomething that marks the Ruhrgebiet begins.

At Kamener Kreuz, I passed almost directly by the ADAC monument a.k.a. four angels abducting a helicopter.  I would really love to take a closer look at that monument one day and take a few photos, but so far I have never been able to figure out how to get there, since it sits directly inbetween two Autobahnen. I’m sure there must be a path or something, since someone is clearly mowing the lawn on the hill on top of which the monument sits.

I took the next exit – Kamen Zentrum – and headed for the retail park and the Grobe bakery café. Bäckerei Grobe is a Dortmund based bakery chain with branches all over the Ruhrgebiet and I have enjoyed their offerings a few times before.

Because it was half past eight on a Saturday morning at the start of a long holiday weekend, the bakery café was busy both with people picking up fresh bread rolls for breakfast at home as well as with people looking to have breakfast at the café. The breakfast line was shorter than the take out line, but unfortunately, it also moved a lot slower.

Part of the problem was that Grobe offers something called a bakery café breakfast, which consists of two bread rolls and five toppings of the customer’s choice. So almost everyone in line took ages to decide what rolls and toppings they wanted. There was a list of available toppings, but not of available bread rolls. The fact that only one person manned the breakfast counter didn’t help either.

When it was finally my turn, I didn’t bother with bread rolls and toppings at all, but instead went for a Dortmund market omelette with and cheese.

Breakfast of Champions of Grayskull: He-Man and I are enjoying a Dortmund market omelette, courtesy of Bakery Grobe at Kamener Kreuz.

By the time, I had finished breakfast, the rain had stopped, which seemed promising. However, because the breakfast line had moved to slowly, it was also already half past nine and the con was set to open at ten. So, I set off again without further ado.

When I reached Hagen, where you have some of the best views along the A1 across the Ruhr valley with no less than two castles, four towers and a massive war monument on top of various mountains, it started to rain again.

Here is a dashcam video on YouTube following almost the entire route I took along the A1, though in reverse direction. It starts in Unna and ends in Bremen. The Kamener Kreuz retail park is at the five minute mark, the angels abducting a helicopter monument at Kamener Kreuz at the seven minute mark, the bridge restaurant of service station Dammer Berge is at the one hour and thirty-eight minutes mark, Groß Mackenstedt a.k.a. Delmenhorst-East, the nearest exit for me in southbound direction is at the two hours and twenty-four minute mark and Bremen-Brinkum, the nearest exit for me in northbound direction, is at the two hours and twenty-nine minute mark. At the two hours and thirty-one minute mark, the driver leaves the A1 at exit Bremen-Arsten. At two hours and thirty-five minutes, he drives through the Habenhausen retail park and then crosses the river Weser via Strawberry Bridge a.k.a. Karl Carstens Bridge.  He then drives down Georg-Bitter-Straße and turns into Bismarckstraße. At two hours and forty-three minutes he passes the former telephone exchange building, where my grandmother worked as an operator (a highly desirable job in the 1920s), and then passes Hospital Bremen-Mitte where my Dad died. At two hours and forty-four minutes, you get a glimpse of 1920s apartment buildings along Bismarckstraße, an early and then revolutionary attempt at social housing for the working class. Nowadays, the apartments are cramped and small with low ceilings, small windows and tiny kitchens, but since they are protected historical buildings, there is little anybody can do about that. At two hours and forty-six minutes, you get a glimpse of the St. Ansgari church and the Victorian buildings of the Schwachhausen neighbourhood. At two hours and forty-seven minutes, you get Am Stern (literally the star), an infamously confusing roundabout where six streets meet and which most locals do anything to avoid. At two hours and forty-eight minutes, you can see the Hermann Böse Gymnasium and the former headquarters of the North German Lloyd shipping company, now a hotel. The video finally ends in front of Bremen Central Station, while I question the driver’s navigation choices, because that’s not the route I would have taken, if I wanted to get to the Central Station.

Autobahn A46 and a Biblical Downpour in Wuppertal 

At the intersection Wuppertal-North, I left Autobahn A1 and drove onto Autobahn A46, one of the many A-fortysomethings of the Ruhrgebiet. Based on my experience last year, it should take about twenty minutes to half an hour to reach Neuss and my destination. At least, that was the theory.

It was still raining and the rain was getting heavier as I passed the various exits that made up Wuppertal. There was also construction work going on here, because the aging A46 is undergoing some much needed refurbishments. But combined with the rain and an already unpleasantly narrow Autobahn, the drive wasn’t exactly pleasant.

But it got even worse, because the rain got even heavier and turned into a downpour of biblical proportions. My windshield wipers were working at the highest frequency and I could still see barely anything. I slowed down, but I couldn’t slow down too much or I’d risk getting hit by other cars.

In short, it was a really dangerous situation. Heavy rain, almost zero visibility and pretty dense traffic. Even my Dad, who was a better and more experienced driver than me, wouldn’t drive onwards under such conditions. He’d stop and wait out the rain. Occasionally, Dad would even stop on the hard shoulder of the Autobahn, when the rain was this heavy. But while that might be viable on the broad A1 or A28, it wasn’t a great idea on the narrow A46. No, I needed to get off the Autobahn fast. A rest area or service station would be best, but an exit would do as well. Any exit.

Luckily, there was an exit just ahead called Wuppertal-Sonnborn, so I left the Autobahn in search of some place to park the car and wait out the rain. Now I have never been to Wuppertal before and know nothing about the city except that it has a unique steampunky suspension railway. So I upon leaving the Autobahn, I randomly turned into the direction which looked more populated and crawled along the streets of Wuppertal-Sonnborn, looking for a place to stop. I chanced to take a road that follows the river Wupper. There was a park along the banks of the river Wupper, which is surely lovely, when you’re not in the middle of a downpour of biblical proportions. But unfortunately, there was no place to park my car.

Eventually, I spotted an Aldi supermarket and drove onto the parking lot. Because it was a Saturday morning, the parking lot was full and I also had to dodge shoppers who were dashing through the rain for the safety and dryness of the store or their cars without paying much attention to traffic. Some people even stopped their cars directly in front of the entrance to let family members get out.

I finally found a free slot a the edge of the parking lot and waited, while the sky was determined to drown Wuppertal in biblical floods. It was five past ten now, the con had just opened and here I was stuck on the parking lot of an Aldi market in Wuppertal. I checked the weather app on my phone, which told me that the downpour would continue for at least another fifteen minutes. So I waited, ate some chocolate and drank a bit of water. In theory, I could have gone into the Aldi store, but in practice I would have been soaked by the time I made it to the door.

The view from my car across the parking lot of an Aldi store in Wuppertal in the rain. I would have put He-Man on the dashboard, but he was in the trunk.

It was about twenty-five minutes past ten, when the rain had subsided to the point that it was safe to continue on my way. So I returned to the Autobahn and the city of Wuppertal, as if determined to apologise for the unplanned delay, gave me a lovely parting gift, because I saw the famous suspension railway pass by. That sight made me so happy that my cheering attracted the attention of other drivers. One day, I really need to make a planned stop in Wuppertal and ride the suspension railway, because it’s just so very cool.

Meanwhile, the ten thirty traffic report on the radio had worrying news. There had been an accident on Autobahn A46 just ahead of me. Apparently other drivers had not been so wise to leave the Autobahn, when the rain became too heavy. So a driver lost control on a rain-slick road and crashed first into a barrier and then into another car, which overturned. Four people were injured and had to be taken to hospital, though luckily no one died. Also see this report about the accident from the Rheinische Post newspaper, which even has a few photos.

Of course, on Saturday morning, I knew nothing about what had happened beyond there has been an accident on the A46 just ahead, a vehicle has overturned and there is a traffic jam with a five minute delay. Now a five minute delay isn’t too bad and since I don’t know my way around Wuppertal and surroundings at all, I drove back onto Autobahn A46 anyway, only to hear the five minute delay turn into a ten minute and then a fifteen minute delay.

And then I hit the traffic jam. The radio informed me that the delay was twenty to twenty-five minutes now, so I decided to leave the Autobahn at the next exit and circumvent the traffic jam on local roads. Luckily, there was an exit just ahead called Haan-East.

I was less than a kilometer away from the exit Haan-East, when I hit the traffic jam, but it took me ten minutes or so to make even the hundred meters to the exit.

Traffic jam on the A46 in the rain.

Turns out that the decision to leave the Autobahn was exactly the right one, because shortly afterwards the entire A46 was closed to allow a rescue helicopter to land. As I left the Autobahn, I also saw an ambulance speeding in the other directions, sirens blaring.

A Detour Among the Neanderthals

Once I left the A46, I found myself in utter terra incognita. I had never been here before and of the names on the roadsigns, only Solingen rang a bell, but Solingen was definitely in the wrong direction. The town Mettmann also rang a bell, but only because there was a German comedy movie called Samba in Mettmann several years ago, starring comedian Hape Kerkeling, who hails from the Ruhrgebiet. Here’s a trailer.

So I stopped to check Google Maps – my GPS Else is unfortunately useless in such situations – which told me that the best and quickest way around the now blocked A46 lead through a town called Gruiten and a town called Hochdahl. I’d never heard of either town, but right inbetween Gruiten and Hochdahl, there is a place everybody has heard of, namely the Neanderthal (nowadays spelled Neandertal) valley. Yup, that Neanderthal, where the remain of the first Neanderthal man were discovered in 1856. The Neanderthal valley was a limestone quarry, which is how the remains were discovered. I was literally among the Neanderthals.

The rain had mostly stopped by now and I drove along a pleasant country road through fields and forests and villages with timbered houses. At the exit Haan-West, I finally rejoined the (still closed) A46 and journeyed onwards past Düsseldorf (or rather under Düsseldorf, since Düsseldorf has a lot of tunnels.)

I left the A46 at the exit Düsseldorf-Bilk and crossed the Rhine on the Josef Cardinal Frings Bridge, which like so many bridges in Germany is currently under construction. To be fair, the bridge was built in 1951 (and named Südbrücke – Southern Bridge – before it was decided to name it after the former Archbishop and Cardinal of Cologne, who was born in Neuss) and probably needs it. But it’s an annoyance nonetheless.

On the far side of the Rhine, I entered Neuss, passed the Rheinpark Center mall, a massive 1970s concrete slab, as well as the German headquarters of 3M and finally made it to Stadthalle Neuss and the con. By now, it was almost half past eleven, i.e. the 32 kilometers from Wuppertal to Neuss had taken me one and a half hours.

But that’s a story for another day.