Apart from previously serving as the capital of West Germany, Bonn is famous for being the birthplace of Beethoven. For most tourists, that would be the main attraction to see. Since I am not most tourists, I decided to save that for Sunday.
After having a coffee at the hostel breakfast (not included), and chilling in the room for a couple of hours, I finally set to explore and ramble across some of the cobblestone alleys of the old town. I waved briefly at the Beethoven house as I passed it, but loitered in the market square when I saw it being set up for a weekend market. I looked at my watch and made a mental note to come back for lunch. At one end of the square, there was a stage set up in from of the town hall. Behind the stage, one could see well dressed people taking care of some business in the town hall. After the rain showers yesterday, the fair sunny weather was a good omen for those Saturday weddings.
I tried to hit all the sights highlighted in the Lonely Planet, but they were pretty disappointing overall. One palace (now a university building) was completely covered in scaffolding. The adjacent botanical gardens are free to visit on weekdays but closed on Saturday. Okay.
The “Arithmeum,” or museum of math, was fantastic and I completely nerded out over the sheer volume of computing machines on display, covering the entirety of human history from the invention of numbers to microprocessors.
I could have spent a lot longer reading up on all the machines, their inventors, and learning how they work, but my stomach was growling and I was thinking about the food cart with Indian street food. I walked back to the market square and was almost tempted by the three or four different vendors selling all kinds of sausages, but I stuck to my initial intentions. I was not disappointed by the tray with 4 kinds of curry on it. I decided to get a quick coffee at the coffee truck afterwards before seeing how far south I wanted to walk.
Passing by another palace, also covered in scaffolding, brings one to the edge of the museum mile, which stretches south from the old town, along but not next to the Rhine. I wasn’t particularly interested in paying for any more museums, but there was a free museum on modern German history down there somewhere near the old government quarter.
I am struck by the parallels between Bonn and Leipzig. Both are associated with famous German composers (including a walking tour through town for various sights), both have free museums on modern German history, and both are associated with democracy (though in their own ways–Bonn was the seat of democracy of West Germany while Leipzig was the spark that brought it to East Germany).
I walked a good chunk of Bonn’s “Way of Democracy” circuit, but it was pretty underwhelming. One isn’t exactly allowed to enter any of the buildings, most of which have been either converted into convention halls or given over to the United Nations for office space. I kept heading south from those buildings to the “Freedom Park” along the river. I stopped at a bench to rest my feet (after walking several kilometers) when my attention was drawn to group after group of people heading in the same direction. When I pulled my earphones out I could hear distant music. I decided to follow the crowd and see what was up. There was a music festival of some sort, but it required tickets, so I only observed it from the outside.
Reaching the pinnacle of my walk, I cut over to the main road to head back to the History Museum. I was pretty far into the suburbs of Bonn at this point and the highways was flanked by office parks for various tech companies. At one point, I noticed a police cruiser keeping pace with me. That was a little disconcerting. When I stopped to read the last “Way of Democracy” plaque, they stopped just ahead. I continued my walk unabated and eventually they bored.
The museum was quite good and it was interesting to see how the focus was on Germany as a whole compared to the more life in East Germany focus of the sister museum in Leipzig. I went through it fairly briskly stopping to read only the main introductory texts while glancing over the artifacts on display. I still feel like I am missing some crucial pieces of history and it is hard to keep things straight when you are learning it through such ground level details without a comprehensive overview.
The museum also had a special exhibit–Very British–concerning relations between Germany and the UK, or at the very least how each country views the other. Though the first room was all about Brexit, subsequent rooms were thematically organized around such topics as the royal family (they are German!), sports competition, remembering the war (“Don’t mention the war!”), and pop culture. It was closing time, by the time I finished.
I walked back along the Rhine and after popping into the hostel for a minute–startling two new guests in the process–headed over to a supermarket to buy a salad and a new bag of coffee. For the second time in two days, I also caved into the chocolate cravings, grabbing a bag of “American” style chocolate chip cookies. I feel sorry for any Germans who buy a package of Chips Ahoy after growing up on these “American” cookies.
There were two more guests later that evening also. We were almost full up. While I was watching a movie on my laptop, the British guy asked if he could close the windows. I assented without thinking about it, and it was a pretty stinky night. Not to stereotype coders, but let’s say one of the two German fellows didn’t pack soap with him on the weekend trip. A couple spritz of cologne on my pillow helped me power through.
| Coffee at hostel | 1.8 |
| Arithmeum | 3 |
| Fish curry @ weekend market | 6.5 |
| Coffee @ market | 2 |
| Rewe salad | 7.7 |
| Total: | 21 EUR (163.8 RMB) (USD 23.17) |
Running Total: 24653.3 RMB (USD 3483.96)
Daily Average: 373.5 RMB (USD 52.79)