Aachen: Charlemagne's Favorite City

This past weekend I traveled to Aachen, home to Charlemagne's Palace.  In addition, it is also the closest German city to the geographical point that represents the meeting of three countries' borders: Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

Aachen is South of Essen, and has a long history from its humble beginnings as a Roman outpost.  The Roman legions created a small outpost/city due to the natural springs.  Overtime, the natural springs became the main draw of the city due to the springs "healing" waters.

The natural spring baths of Aachen.  These are the rebuilt baths, smells very strongly of sulfur, which is probably what gives the natural spring baths their "healing" ability.

These are some of the famous people that visited the Aachen baths.  They range from Casanova to Charlemagne.

The Aachen baths also serve as a prominent entrance into the center of Aachen, which consists of Charlemagne's Church and the remains of Charlemagne's Palace which was replaced by the city government building.

The inside of Charlemagne's Church.  The altar the sculpture in the background are made of almost solid gold!  In addition Charlemagne is supposedly buried somewhere toward the back of this picture.

This octagonal room with the striped arches is very reminiscent of a mosque.

The view of Charlemagne's Church from the outside.

The city government building, which used to be the site of Charlemagne's Palace before the war.

Charlemagne Statue Fountain, Charlemagne is an easily recognized statue because he is usually clad in some sort of armor and carries in his left hand an orb with a cross on the top.

Just West of the Aachen is the small Netherlands town of Vaal.  It is from this city that you can walk to the Three Countries Point.  The borders in this area are very interesting because they don't have any customs or passport checks.  Entering the Netherlands is similar in fashion to entering another state.  You pass and sign and then you are in the country.

I really enjoyed my walk from the town of Vaal to the Three Countries Point.  Not only were the streets lined with a quaint little houses, the landscape was amazing: rolling hills dotted with clusters of forests and wide open meadows.

Picture of the German border sign.  I am really used to crossing into different countries with a slew of passport and customs checks, so when I realized there wasn't one I had to jump back and forth across the border a couple of times!

A beautiful summer day, this was just a picture of a local church.

Rolling meadows and copse of trees, I think I might see Bambi in the background!

Being in three countries at once!  Check!

A fairly large house I passed while I was walking on the border of the Netherlands and Germany.  I wonder, if your property spans the border between the Netherlands and Germany, which country to you pay taxes in?

Anyway this is probably one of the last adventures that I will take while in Germany.  It has been a great time, and hopefully I will be able to visit again!  The beer was great, the weather was beautiful, the public transit was exceptional (a little late sometimes, but who isn't?), and the history was rich!

On the Streets of Bonn... (07.14.12)

This past weekend I headed to the former capital of Germany and birthplace of Beethoven, Bonn.  Bonn served as the capital of West Germany from 1949 until 1990 and then was the capital of Germany until 1999.  Although no longer the capital, the neighborhoods, the well-manicured lawns, and the plethora of museums could fool anybody that didn't know any better.

Statue of Beethoven outside the post office.  All the statues of him make him appear to be a man on a mission.

This is the Dom for the city of Bonn.  Not as impressive as the one in Cologne, but definitely more approachable.

The remnants of the city wall that once surrounded Bonn, this is all that is left.

A picture of Beethoven right across from Beethoven's house, just in case you get lost.  I saw the wall art, took a picture and walked right by the house.  Oops!

This is why I missed Beethoven's house.  It is such a small front and blends in with the surrounding buildings that I thought it was just another German house.

The entrance to the museum for Beethoven's house is accessed through the house garden.  Unfortunately they didn't allow photography, but I managed to take some anyway.  The house was relatively large with multiple rooms.  However, people were a lot smaller back then and the house ceilings are a lot lower.  

The top portion is the printed version of Beethoven's Fur Elise.  The bottom portion is the original composition written by Beethoven.  When I looked at the original composition, I am glad somebody was able to read it because I certainly could not.

The two pianos that Beethoven used to compose one of his piano concertos.

After wandering around the Beethoven house and subsequent museum, I was starving.  Earlier in the day I had purchased a Bonn tourism ticket, only 9 Euros, which included free admission into various museums, 24 hour pass to ride the Bonn public transit, and a bunch of other specials.  One of the specials included a free Bonnsch at a local Breurhaus.

Bonnsch is a local beer in Bonn, but is also the German dialect from this area.  I have never seen a beer glass like this one, but it makes it a lot easier to drink beer because it fits your hand.

This meal is essentially bangers and mash.

After enjoying a great meal of bangers and mash, I wanted to see the Rhine.  Long story short, I got lost and ended up wandering around the streets of Bonn in the rain.  However, it wasn't all bad as I stumbled across the University of Bonn and saw many of the upper class neighborhoods of Bonn.  

The Mathematics Museum located on the grounds of the University of Bonn.  Unfortunately, the museum was closed, but I am pretty sure they have some cool artifacts, like an old slide ruler.

Picture of the University of Bonn from the Mathematics Museum.

I really liked this wall art, which was scrawled on the side of the Mathematics Museum.  They look like a bunch of bacteriophages.

The beautiful Rhine after a rainstorm.  I really like the cloud effects in this picture.

After reaching the Rhine, I walked along the river until I reached musuem mile.  Similar to the Smithsonian, there are a high concentration of museums in this area.  Although most of the captions were in German they did have some English translations.  I think the most fascinating museum was the Deutschland Museum.  It is free to the public and details the history of Germany starting after World War II.  The most fascinating aspect was how the exhibit treated World War II.  The tone of the exhibit and at least the English connotation was something I had never experienced in U.S exhibits.

The presentation of World War II, was an exhibit that showed it happened and something that should never happen again.  It is similar to a U.S Vietnam War exhibit that chastised the decisions of the leaders, acknowledging that it happened, and then went on to state the lessons learned and ways to avoid it in the future.

Three minutes before I took this picture it was pouring buckets of water; such is the weather in Bonn.

The Bonn Hauptbaunhof or the main train station.

By the time I finished the exhibit in the museum I was exhausted and apart from viewing more museums I was done visiting Bonn.  Next week I head to Aachen, so stay tuned.

Biergarten in Dusseldorf (07.03.12)

Its been a while since my last post, but this is a catch up of the last two weeks.

The first big adventure was two weekends ago on July 3rd.  I really wanted to try some traditional German food and a colleague in the lab knew a traditional restaurant in Dusseldorf, a city only 30 minutes away by train.  When we arrived in the city it was pretty typical of a major German city, lots of narrow streets packed with stores and the train station being the center of town.  However, because it was a weekday there weren't as many people shopping, but there were definitely a lot more people drinking.

A weekday in Dusseldorf; less shopping and more drinking.

When we arrived at the restaurant, there was definitely the strong smell of sauerkraut and roast pork.  Immediately my mouth started watering and my stomach started grumbling.  By the time the food came, I could hardly contain my hunger, but it was worth the wait.

Mmmmm!  I was definitely full after this meal!  The dish is called Schweinehexen (sp).

After the great big meal, it was time for some beer tasting.  The major beer in Dussedorf is called Alt and is seen in the picture above.  The drink doesn't have much of a bite, but makes up for it in its refreshing taste and fruity tones.  

A traditional barrel that they used to brew the beer.

My colleagues and I enjoying a nice Altbier.

This beer was purchased at a different brewery, different flavor and different emblem.

In total, my colleague took us to three different breweries, but because it was a weekend we couldn't try anymore.  Although, since Dusseldorf is so close I might go again.

Out of the City and Castle Adventures (06-30-12):


Like last week's post, this weekend adventure started with a soccer game.  In addition to watching with Joe and Martin, I also met some people from Joe's exchange program.  Most of them were from University of Minnesota, but there were also folks from Buffalo and Ottawa.  Apart from watching Germany lose to Italy, our group started talking about weekend plans.  Most of Joe's program was planning on heading to Eifel National Park.  My plan was to head to Aachen, but I was getting wary of city scenes so I asked if I could tag along.

Our group of seven left the Essen train station at 1000.  As we made our way to the park, via two train transfers, concrete jungle was replaced by quaint little towns, small farms, lakes, bubbling rivers, and grazing livestock.  It was like we were being transported to pre-industrial Europe.

Although this was a man-made lake (i.e. a dam reservoir), it was still very picturesque.

The farms were quite small compared to the U.S. and unlike the boundless farmland in the U.S, each plot was separated by hedgerows and lines of trees.  

Many of the houses we saw in this area were painted in this fashion.  It reminded me of the stereotypical German style home I had seen from the movies.  I don't know if all houses in this area are required to be painted in this fashion (like a home owner's association), but I enjoyed the style.

When we arrived at our destination,we walked through a cobblestone street town up to a castle/fort (burg in German).  As an aside, I realize that in the last blog I said schloss was castle, which is true but schloss can also refer to a manor or a palace.  Irregardless of what it is called the castle and the surround city was gorgeous.  It was also surprising that the castle was still intact, given the relentless bombing of Germany during WWII.

The castle overlooking the Ruhr river.  I speculate that the castle was built as an outpost along the river, but I can't be certain.

The little town on the way to the castle.

The gateway to the castle.  It would have been a tad bit more foreboding if the weather wasn't so sunny!

View of the castle tower from the veranda.

Shot of the tower from the castle courtyard.

Climbing the tower to the battlements!

View of the town from the castle top.

The beautiful countryside and the Ruhr river.

The motley travel crew!

After visiting the castle, we followed the river upstream to a lake.  It was a long trek, but it was worth it to get away from the beaten path.

After the long trek up to the lake we were all very tired, so we took a train and started heading back to Essen.  However, as we started out toward home we spotted another castle.  Our sense of adventure overpowered our feeling of exhaustion and we got off the train to trek up to the castle.  By this time it was about 1800 and we all wanted to get back home before the subways stopped running.  This created a sense of urgency and so in 40 minutes our group ran up to the castle, took some pictures, and then ran back down before the next train arrived.

The town square we ran past on the way to the castle.  As I was running through the streets it was very out of place in the leisurely atmosphere of the city.

The building located in the middle of the picture are the medieval gates of the wall that used to surround the town.

This shot didn't turn out as well, due to the light saturation, but this is the church that is located on the castle grounds.

Remnants of the battlements for the castle.

The view from the top of the castle.  Down in the bottom right hand corner is the train station.  We ran up and down the hill from the train station in 40 minutes!

In my opinion, the castle was worth the trek; even though we got back to Essen at 2200. I currently don't have plans for next weekend, but I think it will probably involve a trip to the city.