Bonn

Beethoven's House

Augustusburg Palace

Bridge at Remagen

500 Piece Puzzle

 

June 1, 2011- Keeping Pace

A clarification: the soup we ate at Flanders Fields was Chervil. 

There are so many nuclear plants along the Rhine. It was surprising to see two as we cruised during dinner last night. I guess Germany is really invested in that technology. We passed Cologne at 5:45 AM & they said they'd make wake up calls to those who wanted to see it. Not!!!

When we opened our curtains this morning we were sailing past a forest. It looked pretty dark so we decided it was a "black forest." Now we dodn't have to take the tour to see The Black Forest which is mainly black forest cake tasting.

We docked in Bonn, looked up, & saw mountains. Our first on this trip. They proudly sport 7 hills overlooking the city. Bonn was the capital of what was W. Germany & is now U.N. Headquarters. The population is only 310,000 which makes this university town seem intimate. It's origins were, of course, fraught with wars and invasions. Romans settled here to be joined by Celts fleeing the ever increasing cold in the north. They camped across the river and mixed with Scandinavians who came later. The Celt/Scand group raided the Romans giving them the impetus to build fortifications that still exist from here to Cologne. The Celtic side of the river was poorer and that held through the Middle Ages when it became where menial workers lived. It was the center for laundries where urine was collected to use in bleaching clothes, especially woolens. I think that will stick in my mind for a long time. Ah yes, and there was a plaque commemorating the Prussians. Another group who probably killed our relatives. We travel Europe from pogrom to pogrom.

As we walked along the riverfront towards the city center we passed a boat flying a rainbow flag. I asked Dewi and she said it was a symbol of the LGBT community here too. I told her that in Berlin we'd been told it was just a sign of the Green Party. She answered that some guides don't want to get into controversial subjects. I then told her about David's position as PFLAG president.

We walked past a university building and Dewi told us that the free-education system had recently changed. They were cultivating lots of perpetual students so now charge a nominal 600 EU per semester as incentive to graduate. Universities of Europe grew up in cities and don't usually make provisions for student housing in dorms like we do. I guess they mature sooner here as they learn to live independently.

Walking into the center of town we saw lots of fresh air markets and the munster. No, it's not cheese, but refers to a church with a monastery attached. This was on a square near a statue of Beethoven who was born in Bonn in 1770. He's considered a son of Bonn and lived in six houses in Bonn before permanently settling in Vienna. Permanently settling is a misleading term since he moved sixty times there. Dewi moved us out of that area thinking she'd spotted a "stalker" who might have been a pickpocket hanging around our group.

The Rococo Town Hall was where JFK spoke the words "Ich bin ein Berliner." Unfortunately his advisors misled him and what he said actually translates to "I am a pastry." People here fell in love with him anyhow. That said, the rococo style was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a more showy display of wealth than the even baroque. In my mind it's a matter of degrees & rococo is baroque on steroids.

I tried my German at a souvenir shop and I guess I was convincing. I asked where Beethoven's house was and unfortunately he answered in detailed German. I thanked him & walked out of the store so that David could ask in English. It was across the street. We rented head sets for a narrated tour and were inundated with too much information. We'd still be there if we'd listened to explanations of each document & instrument exhibited. Beethoven lost his parents while still in his twenties but the great tragedy of his life, hearing loss, began when he was twenty-eight with the onset of what we now know is tinitus.

Not to worry that we'd feel homesick. These are just some of the familiar stores we've seen on the trip: Starbucks,McDonalds,Pizza Hut, Subway,TJMaxx.

We ambled back to the boat for lunch and lamented that we weren't traveling independently. It was a perfect day to buy food at the market at eat it at riverside. Well, we did eat at riverside at a white-clothed table and in air-conditioned comfort.

Augustusburg Palace

This afternoon we took a forty minute jaunt on the autobahn to Bruhl. Built by Hitler as his own WPA project to boost the German economy, he planned all along to use it to efficiently move troops during wartime. We passed ALDI's, a German owned store and Dewi surprised me by telling us that the German brothers who established ALDI's also own Trader Joe's. Our bus driver found the town easily enough but there was no way he could negotiate the turn from the town's main street to what he thought was the road to the palace. We provided much entertainment for shoppers as he backed up two blocks to a roundabout and finally negotiated his way to the correct parking lot. Now we can say we've seen Bruhl twice.

 The Augustusburg Palace (a World Heritage Site) was built in the mid-1700's and took forty-three years to complete. The duke and archbishop (same person) Clemens August, wanted to be current with the style of the day so as the fads changed from baroque to rococo he re-designed the palace. Funding had to be raised and that added time. It was completed a year after his death but not to worry. He got to live in most of it and only one room was incomplete when he died.

According to Dewi, August was quite the party giver. He prayed in the morning and played at night putting to use both his professions. She claims that he was quite the Scrabble player (her euphemism for sex) and didn't suffer from vows of celibacy. He was a follower of fashion in clothing as well as building styles. He & his courtiers patterned themselves after Louis XVI & XVII with high heels, tall wigs, & extremely corseted waists for the women. The height of the wigs indicated wealth and rank and were never to be higher than the royals. Speaking of rank, wigs were never cleaned so white powder was used to cover dirt and kill the lice that inevitably found lodging there.

The palace is small by Versailles' standards, but elegant. Unfortunately for us the furniture, chandeliers, & floors were replicas. Lucky for August's debtors, he ordered that all furnishings, art, & his possessions be sold after his death to pay his debts. He lived lavishly with incomes from taxes (he was a duke, after all) & pay-offs from governments who bribed him not to join their enemies and go to war against them (eg. France). He was more interested in giving five hour long lavish dinners served in the French fashion with three courses each offering ten choices for a total of thirty dishes. But he wasn't selfish about his riches. He regularly invited townspeople and peasants to stand in a gallery above the dining room to feast with their eyes on how the rich and famous lived. Yes, there was no internet or CNN back then, but people were still interested in royal-watching.

When he wasn't eating he passed his time hunting. His favorite was falconry using three falcons to hunt heron. It was more for entertainment than gaining food as it took falcons longer to ground the heron than to catch a rabbit.

French gardens surrounded the palace and are now used by locals as a park. Tree-shaded promenades were prevalent as the ladies of the palace didn't want to tan like commoners who worked outdoors. They wanted to be true bluebloods & have skin so white you could see the "blue" blood in their veins. With that the royals were said to be stinking rich. Only the elite were buried under church floors and in the days before embalming they literally did stink up the place.

 Back on board dinner was yummy sauerbraten which David claimed was the reason he came on this trip. Afterwards the captain alerted us to go to the sun deck as we passed lovely estates and then the bridge at Remagen. Its distinction is that it survived Allied air strikes & the Allies used it to cross the Rhine. Ironically, once across, a German-American soldier named Timmerman destroyed it. Today only the pillars survive on each bank. As we cruised by I noticed a spray painted swastika on a wall nearby. Dewi said it would be soon gone.

We turn in to the Mosel River tonight and enter wine country tomorrow.

The puzzle is finished. We took a picture of it and I asked the bartender who was teasing us about putting it in the box every night if he wanted to do the honors. He helped me dump it. Then I told him I'd already arranged for a larger tray tomorrow for a 1,000 piece puzzle. Gulp!

Toby