Bonn was one of the more pleasant cities that I have so far visited. While its train station was, like Cologne's, next to the subway and filled by a non-negligible number of bums, Bonn was, to its credit, the first city that I had visited that had free bathrooms. The tourist information itself was difficult to find, so I wandered the city half at random for awhile. I bumped into a man who spoke with a French accent when I asked him about a nearby church, and he spent a whole couple of minutes, missing his chance to cross the road, explaining to me where I might find the church that I sought, tourist information, and other local attractions (in French, once I had asked him if he spoke it). This man's good-naturedness exemplifies that of Germans and Dutchmen in general: so far, dozens of people have helped me find sites of interest to me and otherwise given me information that I needed. Germans have none of the suicidal craziness that so defines French and Swiss drivers, and I have not once seen one of them jaywalk, even when it would obviously have been safe and in their best interests to do so. I even saw one German man click his tongue disapprovingly at a man who started across the road two seconds before the "walk" sign for pedestrians came on!
Having tired somewhat of photographing old churches, I tried to treat Bonn as a city, the essential character of which I wanted to discover. Despite being small, Bonn is culturally alive, as it is full of students, fountains, sculptures, and museums - there is even a whole section of town called something like "Museum Mile"! It is a very green city, much more green than Cologne, and has a very pleasant waterfront, which was, unfortunately, flooded when I visited it. Water spilled all across the sidewalks and even into the street in places; wharfs ended inexplicably in the water, instead of affording boaters a dry passage back to the shore; and trees stood up to their necks in water as though nothing at all were the matter. If the Rhine's flooding continues for another week, I may have to leave my trip along the Danube off for a future year and remodel my plans, which would be a hassle; I hope that the flooding lets up.
My main mistake in Bonn was to enter Beethoven's former house there. The residents of Bonn take great pride in Beethoven's having been born there despite his having hated the city, and they have turned the house in which he lived into a museum in his honor. I knew that it was a bit of a tourist trap, and I was afraid that it would not be worth my money to check it out, but, inspirited by my memories of Dostoyevsky's house, which was a very nice museum in Saint Petersburg, I decided to risk my four Euros.
The house was a total disappointment. It had some old musical instruments, a few old letters, some portraits, and not much else. The excursion did bear two highlights, though. The first was when I heard a girl say in French to the man with her, "It's so cool that Beethoven played at this very piano!" which signaled to me what I was supposed to feel in the museum. The second highlight was my hearing a bunch of schoolchildren speaking French, asking their teacher if they were from France, and being told, in English, "I don't speak Dutch."
My day was otherwise without incident, aside from a nun's having gotten mad at me for trying to explore the premises of a seminary. A seminary student who had stopped me to ask what I was doing told me that I could not enter the seminary, which did not discourage me from trying to look around it. When an angry nun came out and demanded to know what I was doing, I said, "I'm tourist. Sorry. I go--" and pointed in the direction in which I intended to go, not knowing the word for "there." (My German is generally improving, but I still sometimes forget key words, such as "to eat" or the second half of the word "ticket," when asking people questions; I sometimes get flustered.) When I later bumped into the seminary student and he asked me if I had managed to look at the premises, I told him what had happened and he offered to give me a tour of the seminary. I politely declined, as I had to get going for Frankfurt, but I was glad of his offer.
The train ride from Bonn to Mainz (from which I transferred to Frankfurt) was spectacular. I passed scores of churches, a few houses with the criss-cross black-and-white wooden facades for which Strasbourg is famous, and something like a dozen castles. Looking for castles turned into a sort of game, like looking for bald eagles back home: one would look up at the top of each hill to see if there was a castle there. The train ran right along the flooding river, showing me essentially everything that I had planned to visit for the following two days, which is what freed me up to change my plans and try to inject a little variety into my trip; I am up to my ears in medieval Europe.
Thus, I have seen the upper Rhine! I recommend it to anyone interested in the Middle Ages, but I do not recommend spending more than a few days there. I m about to explore Frankfurt and will tell you more about my hostel in today's post (Day 6 - Frankfurt). It is a story in and of itself.
Finally, I have one small note to make: Europe must have been almost entirely forested before people came to it. The number and variety of trees here is astonishing. (I also like the local birds.) That is all.
Having tired somewhat of photographing old churches, I tried to treat Bonn as a city, the essential character of which I wanted to discover. Despite being small, Bonn is culturally alive, as it is full of students, fountains, sculptures, and museums - there is even a whole section of town called something like "Museum Mile"! It is a very green city, much more green than Cologne, and has a very pleasant waterfront, which was, unfortunately, flooded when I visited it. Water spilled all across the sidewalks and even into the street in places; wharfs ended inexplicably in the water, instead of affording boaters a dry passage back to the shore; and trees stood up to their necks in water as though nothing at all were the matter. If the Rhine's flooding continues for another week, I may have to leave my trip along the Danube off for a future year and remodel my plans, which would be a hassle; I hope that the flooding lets up.
My main mistake in Bonn was to enter Beethoven's former house there. The residents of Bonn take great pride in Beethoven's having been born there despite his having hated the city, and they have turned the house in which he lived into a museum in his honor. I knew that it was a bit of a tourist trap, and I was afraid that it would not be worth my money to check it out, but, inspirited by my memories of Dostoyevsky's house, which was a very nice museum in Saint Petersburg, I decided to risk my four Euros.
The house was a total disappointment. It had some old musical instruments, a few old letters, some portraits, and not much else. The excursion did bear two highlights, though. The first was when I heard a girl say in French to the man with her, "It's so cool that Beethoven played at this very piano!" which signaled to me what I was supposed to feel in the museum. The second highlight was my hearing a bunch of schoolchildren speaking French, asking their teacher if they were from France, and being told, in English, "I don't speak Dutch."
My day was otherwise without incident, aside from a nun's having gotten mad at me for trying to explore the premises of a seminary. A seminary student who had stopped me to ask what I was doing told me that I could not enter the seminary, which did not discourage me from trying to look around it. When an angry nun came out and demanded to know what I was doing, I said, "I'm tourist. Sorry. I go--" and pointed in the direction in which I intended to go, not knowing the word for "there." (My German is generally improving, but I still sometimes forget key words, such as "to eat" or the second half of the word "ticket," when asking people questions; I sometimes get flustered.) When I later bumped into the seminary student and he asked me if I had managed to look at the premises, I told him what had happened and he offered to give me a tour of the seminary. I politely declined, as I had to get going for Frankfurt, but I was glad of his offer.
The train ride from Bonn to Mainz (from which I transferred to Frankfurt) was spectacular. I passed scores of churches, a few houses with the criss-cross black-and-white wooden facades for which Strasbourg is famous, and something like a dozen castles. Looking for castles turned into a sort of game, like looking for bald eagles back home: one would look up at the top of each hill to see if there was a castle there. The train ran right along the flooding river, showing me essentially everything that I had planned to visit for the following two days, which is what freed me up to change my plans and try to inject a little variety into my trip; I am up to my ears in medieval Europe.
Thus, I have seen the upper Rhine! I recommend it to anyone interested in the Middle Ages, but I do not recommend spending more than a few days there. I m about to explore Frankfurt and will tell you more about my hostel in today's post (Day 6 - Frankfurt). It is a story in and of itself.
Finally, I have one small note to make: Europe must have been almost entirely forested before people came to it. The number and variety of trees here is astonishing. (I also like the local birds.) That is all.
Students relax at a tree-lined park.
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