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Drachenfels I
Schloss Drachenburg, the palace below the top of the mountain. For the turn of the year, my friend Christiane and I had decided to book a package with a hotel in Bad Honnef. Bad Honnef is across the river Rhine and a few kilometres upstream from the city of Bonn, the former German capital. It is located at the foot of a mountain called “Drachenfels” (“Rock of the Dragon”), which has an old castle ruin and a palace on its top. Our hotel package comprised two nights including a buffet breakfast in the hotel and a day pass for a nearby sauna and spa park. And it was just a 90-minute drive from where we both live, which was rather convenient because we would not have to spend many hours in the car for a relatively short stay.
We arrived in Bad Honnef in the late afternoon of the 30
th of December. When waiting for check-in at the hotel, another guest in the queue addressed us and asked us whether we had been by the river Rhine already. He seemed to be all excited about getting to see the river. This seemed a very odd question to Christiane and me because both of used to live close to the river,
Drachenfels II
Another view of Schloss Drachenburg. Christiane in the city of Remagen for maybe two decades, I in the city of Bonn for 2.5 years. Thus, for us there was nothing special about finally seeing the river, which of course the man did not know. Thus, we politely responded that we had not been down to the river yet. Still, it was an odd feeling checking into a hotel close to a place where we used to live.
After settling into our room, we went for a walk along the river, downstream towards the centre of the city of Bad Honnef. The river is quite wide, and the water level was fairly high, but the footpath was clear. The city centre of Bad Honnef is rather nice. It has many semi-timbered houses and a neat little chapel in the middle of the main road that separates the two lanes of the road. The city is known for its mild climate throughout the whole year and thus sometimes called the “Nizza by the Rhine”. The city district of Rhöndorf was Konrad Adenauer’s hometown. He was the first German Chancellor after the Second World War.
We had a nice dinner at a restaurant called “Haus im
Drachenfels III
The ruin of Drachenfels Castle. Turm” (“House in the Tower”) and then walked back to our hotel to have an early night.
The next morning, we took our time to enjoy the breakfast buffet. Then we headed to the bottom of Drachenfels. The top of the mountain is 270 metres above the river, and there are a lot of myths being told about the mountain. One says that its name comes from a dragon that used to live on the mountain. Some even link it to the Tale of the Nibelungs and say that it was on this very mountain where Sigfried killed the dragon and bathed in his blood to become invulnerable. And somehow, there is something mystic about the mountain.
There is a road running up the mountain (no cars allowed) and there is a cog railway. We took the road and walked up. It is not a long walk, only about 45 minutes, but the climb is at times rather steep. On a small plateau below the top, there is a palace called Schloss Drachenburg that was built between 1882 and 1884 in neo-gothic and neo-renaissance style. Nowadays, it hosts a museum on cultivation of home décor and a hotel.
Drachenfels IV
The rocks just below the ruin. Previously used as a quarry, therefore it was necessary to stabilise the walls. Around Christmas, there is a nice Christmas market in the park surrounding the palace.
We had been to the palace before and therefore continued our ascent to the top, where there is the ruin of Drachenfels Castle. It dates from the 12
th century and used to secure the city of Cologne that lies downstream. In 1634, the castle was deconstructed in parts and never re-built. The rocks below were used as a quarry. However, in 1816, Lord Byron visited the ruin and made it well-known. From then onwards, tourists came to enjoy the romanticism up there, and this is also why the cogwheel was built. From the top of the mountain, one has a beautiful view of the river and the cities up- and downstream, including Bonn and even Cologne. And from down below the ruin does look very romantic indeed, particularly with the light changing the day. At night, it is illuminated beautifully.
Christiane and I made our way back down and made a stopover at “Nibelungenhalle” (“Hall of the Nibelungs”), a sort of museum dedicated to the Tale of the Nibelungs. The round walls of the building surround one hall. Suspended along the walls, there are
Drachenfels V
View down on the river Rhine towards the north, Cologne. paintings of different scenes from Richard Wagner’s opera “The Ring of the Nibelung”, and there is a relief of the famous composer on one of its walls. Emerging from the building, we walked down a small alley into a little courtyard with a statue of a dragon lying on the ground. Through another alley, we walked into a small reptile zoo with all kinds of living reptiles including crocodiles and also various kinds of frogs. This part of the Nibelungenhalle we did not find too exciting, and I always struggle with the idea of animals kept in captivity. But the rest we rather enjoyed.
Back in the city, we had a late lunch in a café: galettes with goat cheese and walnuts. Then we walked down to the river to watch the sunset. It was chilly, and when we got back to the hotel, we both needed a hot shower and then a little rest before heading out for our New Year’s Eve dinner. It had not been easy to find a place on rather short notice and one that would serve vegetarian food, but Christiane had done a great job finding an Italian restaurant called Cesarino, right next
Drachenfels VI
View down on the river Rhine towards the West. to the nice chapel I mentioned before. We had a tasty three-course meal. The restaurant closed at around 10 pm, so Christiane and I walked back to our hotel. We were tired and decided not to stay up until midnight and thus had a sort of early night.
This meant we felt rested and fit the next day and could enjoy the buffet breakfast again. Then we checked out of the hotel and headed to the sauna and spa park for which we had a voucher, Saunapark Siebengebirge. We enjoyed a very relaxing first day of the new year, including a nice lunch, and left the sauna park in the early evening to head back home.
What a nice start of the year! It was interesting to be back in an area where I lived for over two years. At the time, I quite liked Drachenfels, and I walked up there frequently. Moreover, reading a little bit about the Tale of the Nibelungs inspired me to dive into it again. When I was a teenager, I had quite an interest in this tale as well as in the one on King Arthur and others. So, I look forward
Drachenfels VII
View on the river Rhine, towards the south, Koblenz. to getting back into the topic.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Beautiful
I would love to see this some day.