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Published: June 24th 2023
Dear All
Greetings on this my second and final blog entry on my lovely little mini-trip to Cologne and around during the summer half-term. This will relate my last two days on the trip, starting from a really wonderful second full day – while my first full day I devoted to Cologne, my second was to Bonn. After all, the airport I flew into was called Cologne-Bonn Airport, so I thought, why not do them both!
In actual fact the city of Bonn always intrigued me as a child, as I'd always learned in the eighties that Berlin was the capital of East Germany, and Bonn was the capital of West Germany. I'd already been to Berlin on my 1999 Interrailing trip, and although it didn't feel it at the time, it was really not comparatively long after the Berlin Wall came down, and differences between East and West Germany were still quite marked then (this makes me feel old!).
On this trip 24 years later, I was visiting the former capital of the West. My first stop was a visit to Beethoven's birthplace in the middle of the lovely winding, cobbled alleyways of Bonn. This was a
House and Garden
Beethoven-Haus, Bonnlovely little museum in a well-preserved and very creaky 18th century house, where the marvellous musical maestro apparently lived for the first 15 years of his life. I learned more about the man, and particularly his fortitude in overcoming his deafness which was already quite marked at just 30 years old. I have always found it quite amazing that this didn't stop him, and I think we can all learn something about determination and resilience from his story. A particular highlight of the house was a special music room displaying an old early 19
th century Broadwood piano, and playing Moonlight Sonata in the background while a projector showed exactly where on Beethoven’s original handwritten musical score the music was. It was quite incredible to see the difference between musical scores two hundred years ago and today, I don’t think I could have read his original jottings.
Next up I enjoyed a wander through the lovely old cobbled streets and quaint houses of Bonn, and onto a destination I was quite excited about. This was the Villa Hammerschmidt, presidential palace and home of the West German chancellor when there was one, from 1950 to 1994. It is also the current
Confluence of the Mosel and Rhein Rivers
You can see the different coloured waters meeting and mixing German chancellor's home when he visits this area on state business, which means that although bookings can be made, they can also be cancelled last-minute if he chooses to visit town.
Villa Hammerschmidt is also nicknamed the “White House on the Rhein”, due to its striking similarity to its American counterpart, owing in no small part I think to the two countries’ strong post-war relations. While the place is not usually open to the public, you can actually book yourself onto a private guided tour if you contact them weeks in advance, and also send them a completed registration form in advance. You also need to show your passport when you arrive. So it was actually a very exclusive tour far from the crowds of the touristy sights of Bonn and Cologne, and I felt very priveleged to be on it, with around 15 of us on this sole tour of the day at 1pm. All others were German-speaking, as was the tour itself, but that didn't matter to me. It was just a real pleasure and privelege to walk around the grounds and the house itself, with its exclusive view over the Rhein River.
While my German
helped me get by with the day to day of travelling there, I could only really pick up a smattering of what was being explained in the language, but not to worry as the guide did translate some important parts into English for me, which was very nice of her. In particular, she tried to explain the significance of an intriguing building next door, called the Villa Spiritus, officially home to the British Army during the days of West Germany, but from what I gathered, also served as headquarters for British intelligence into East Germany and beyond, spy stories, MI6 and James Bond-types. Very interesting!
It was a wonderful tour, and although the bit of advanced organisation is required, it was a real bargain at just €13, and included transport to and from the place in Bonn from my accommodation in Cologne, which itself would have cost around €10!!
My final stop for the day came from inspiration having just recently watched an episode of "The Travel Bug", where host Morgan Burrett visits Cologne, adding on a trip to nearby Koblenz and up the Mosel Valley. Whilst I had no time to do the latter, I was inspired
by the episode to visit Koblenz, and was very glad that I did.
Koblenz is a quaint little town sitting at the confluence of the Rhein River and its very famous, wine-growing area tributary of the Mosel River. The former is brown and muddy, while the latter is dark and black. There is a very notable border of these two river colours as they both meet, before they subsequently merge into one. The meeting point is actually called “Deutches Eck”, meaning “German Corner”, and seems to form some kind of spiritual centre of the country of Germany. The corner and confluence is overlooked by a huge and purposefully imposing statue of William I, the united Germany's first Emperor on horseback, originally erected in 1897 and subsequently rebuilt following German reunification in 1993 as it was destroyed during World War Two.
Nearby, a cable car also travels across the Rhein and up to the equally imposing Ehrenbreitstein Fortress on the other side of the river, for awesome views over Koblenz, Deutsches Eck, the Rhein River valley, and up the latter stages of the Mosel. I enjoyed my time there very much, and at the top of the cable car
Beethoven Statue
Münsterplatz, Bonn got talking to a lovely English group of mature travellers who'd just finished a boat and cycle tour down the Mosel Valley. They'd washed their time down apparently with plenty of wine and beer!
After contemplating the awesome views and enjoying the lovely little town of Koblenz, I headed back again to Cologne, and then back to my accommodation for my final night in the little Garden of Eden.
On my final day on this mini-trip to Germany, I checked out of my little slice of paradise accommodation, saying goodbye to the lovely owners on my way out as they were having breakfast with family members in their gorgeous garden. As if train strikes in the UK were not enough, for some reason the S-Bahn train to the airport was completely cancelled for four days due to "staff sickness". And I thought UK train drivers were &*#ers, it seems their German compatriots are even worse!
Never mind, I did manage to figure out an alternative way to the airport via a lovely village to the east of Cologne called Bensberg. It was a short S-Bahn ride there from my accommodation, and then a direct bus to the
airport from there. I had a couple of hours to spend in this upmarket little village, and after a short wander through town, headed up to its star attraction - the absolutely stunning Althoff Grandhotel Schloss Bensberg. This is a seriously top-end hotel charging €200 per night for its more basic rooms, to €2000 per night for its presidential suite, and commanding an awesome view over the surrounding Rhein floodplain and way over towards central Cologne itself. In fact, whoever designed the place clearly knew this, as when you look out from the hotel through its main gates, the Cologne Cathedral is bang in the middle of the viewpoint through the gate from there.
I enjoyed a lovely cheesecake and milch-kaffee in the beautiful hotel courtyard, and the view and surroundings were seriously worth the €12 I parted ways with for them. At 12pm a huge air-raid siren went off, three times in total, but everyone just seemed to carry on as normal. I was sure World War Two had ended by then, and upon asking a friendly local, apparently Germany does this throughout the whole country every couple of months or so to test their national emergency warning
system. I'm not sure I like the idea of this, and the kind of reflection of the times we live in it presents, and was happy when the sirens ended after the third time.
The bus back to the airport again was fine, as was the flight home. The train strikes were on again in London, but fortunately as mentioned in my previous blog, Stansted Express was still running an hourly service - well done them! From Liverpool Street Station it was a tube and bus ride home again, as opposed to a tube then train ride had there been any Southern Trains running, around 2.5 hours in total which probably would have been 2 hours with no strikes. So although geographically quite far, Stansted seems also a good option for me for future travels.
So as I bring these two blog entries on my lovely little mini-trip to this lovely little corner of Germany to an end, I would like to thank Germany for having me. Cologne and around is not only beautiful, but the people were also so very friendly and gave me wonderful opportunities to practise my German which I definitely feel has improved since
Beethoven Portrait
Beethoven-Haus, Bonn Austria and Liechtenstein over the New Year.
I would also like to mention that I think I'll be making this mini-trip in the summer half-term a more regular, annual, thing to keep me going between Easter and the Summer. Time to start thinking about where to head to this time next year now!
So, thank you very much for reading, and until South Africa in the summer now - yay!
All the best for now
Alex
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