Adventures With Harvey

Schloss, Sauerkraut and Sunshine

Have any of you heard of Brühl, Remagen or Koblenz? Or indeed Phantasialand? By all means reply in the comments if you have because they were places neither your faithful correspondent nor his lovely wife had previously come across. But they are all fantastic little towns which have been a treat to visit… oh yes, and the last one is a theme park 😊. We are just entering a region of Germany known as Eifel which starts at Bonn (former capital of West Germany before reunification) and takes in a large swathe of area in a south and westerly direction. For us, that means we’ll be following the River Rhine pretty much in a southerly direction from there.

After a lovely couple of days in Aachen, and after quite some head scratching, we headed for Cologne. It was hard to know which of the big cities in this area were worth a visit because there were plenty to choose from! Within 150km or so of Aachen you also have the cities of Bonn (to the south-east) and Dusseldorf, Essen and Dortmund to the north-east. All of them undoubtedly have a story and plenty to see and do however, for us, the focus of this trip isn’t really big cities. Although we will certainly visit some, we’re more interested in out-of-the-way places; little villages, often with a magnificent Kirche (church) or Schloss (castle) or who knows what else to explore.

Cologne took our fancy for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the cathedral there is the largest in Germany (and also one of the finest of our trip so far). In addition, our Lonely Planet bible also mentioned (amongst other things) a chocolate museum, a sports museum (keeping both the pink and blue teams happy) and quite a vibrant city centre. We spent 3 nights parked up for free at a bus carpark a five-minute walk from the banks of a very shallow Rhine and caught a train from the nearby station into town each day. As mentioned earlier, the cathedral is a colossus and was the tallest building in Europe until a certain Gustave Eiffel built his tower in Paris… and astonishingly survived the allied bombings of WWII largely intact. Yes, despite 14 direct hits the famous twin spires remained standing and were, according to allied bombardiers, a very useful landmark to know you were in the correct city and where to drop one’s payload. A little like St Pauls in London which also stood out like a beacon in a flattened city, the photo below shows how Cologne was largely flattened but somehow, miraculously, the cathedral remained standing. Of course, these days it is fully repaired and, according to our tour guide, there are around 100 people employed full time working in its maintenance and upkeep.

Part of our interest in Germany is to get a take on war history from their point of view. Having been defeated in two world wars, we were sure there would be a different historical narrative from the Germans – would the history be ignored, would it be of academic interest, or would there be a sense of shame over the actions of their forebears? It’s early days and we’re yet to form much of an opinion in this regard however Cologne has one very interesting ‘attraction’, the EL-DE-Haus which is the former Gestapo headquarters in the city. Although the site was used for other purposes in the 60’s and 70’s, it is now a museum and you can visit the cells where prisoners were held, tortured and (in the case of more than 400 of them) executed. The most striking feature was the graffiti – the prisoners often had no idea why they were there, how long they would be held, nor anything that was happening in the outside world. A huge number of the scratchings have been preserved and documented and provide a fascinating insight into the life of these poor folk who had the misfortune to get on the wrong side of the Nazis.

Check out the photos below for a little more of Cologne including the aforementioned museums as well as a few random pics from our meanderings around the town.

We toyed with visiting Bonn but the reviews indicated there was nothing much unique there, so we decided to give it a miss. Instead, we headed for the small town of Brühl which seemed to have much more going for it. The main industry in the town is a theme park called Phantasialand and, despite the firm reservations of Dr Dave, our recently surgeried patient decided that she was in good enough shape for a day riding rollercoasters and other such tomfoolery. As it turned out, thankfully, the lovely Anita was indeed well enough to do so, and the two of us had a quite lovely day riding all the big rollercoasters, stopping by a show or 2, eating bratwurst and other local treats, and generally having a blast in another day where the top temperature reached into the mid 30’s. [with apologies to you poor folk in New Zealand who must all have grown webbed feet by now!]

In the morning after a visit to the Schloss and nearby Falkenlust (a hunting lodge) we headed south to re-join the Rhine at a little town called Remagen. Our Harvey parking spot was only a 30 second stroll from the banks of the river and, on a walk the first evening (in yet another 30deg + day) your author was unable to resist the urge to strip off and take a dip in the very same river. So, what is Remagen famous for? As well as starting life as a Roman settlement (as many of these places on the Rhine seemed to), and also having a couple of magnificent Kirche, there are the remains of one particularly famous bridge… please indulge me briefly…

In early 1945 as the Nazis were in full retreat and, in order to prevent them escaping back to the safety of Germany, the allies were busy bombing and destroying as many bridges over the Rhine as possible. The river provides an excellent natural barrier and, once the Germans had pretty much all made their escape, the allies ceased their bombardment (because of course, now the bridges were a necessary tool in their pursuit) and the Germans proceeded to destroy their own bridges in order to foil their pursuers. All except the bridge at Remagen which, on 7 March 1945, was captured by the Americans. Despite continued bombardment from the Germans (and attempts by frogmen and other saboteurs), the bridge remained intact for another 10 days enabling 125000 troops along with a huge amount of hardware and supplies to cross the Rhine. Eisenhower was heard to comment that the bridge was worth it’s weight in gold and, in the washup, shortened the war by several months saving countless lives in the process. Sadly, the bridge’s sudden collapse on 17 March came with the deaths of 28 American engineers who were working to keep it intact and, equally tragically, Hitler ordered the execution of 4 of his officers for failing to destroy the bridge before it fell into enemy hands. The bridge has never been rebuilt and these days the foundation structure on the western side is a museum telling the story I have outlined above. This is one of the things I’m loving the most about this trip – the little towns you visit and the stories they have to tell. It’s like a snapshot within a vignette but each story is fascinating, and your author and his lovely travelling companion are happy little explorers for sure!!!

Speaking of said travelling companion, I’m sure you’ll all be interested in an injury recovery update. The patient is actually doing very well with each day being a slight improvement on the last – her bruising has largely gone and mobility, although still limited, is making steady gains. The main issue is the levels of pain and discomfort which remain stubbornly high, a good night’s sleep is often elusive and regular use of pain killers each day is still necessary. However, one must remember that it was a nasty injury and as such the patient must be patient during the recovery phase.

So as this missive comes to a close, we greet you from the town of Koblenz which is situated on the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle rivers. We only arrived this afternoon and have been for just a short walk along the river bank however I can tell you there is a fort on top of the hill which will be reached tomorrow by cable car and on the other side of the Moselle we’ve already seen easily the largest bronze statue so far on this trip. Tomorrow we shall explore further and your author looks forward to bringing you the story in the exciting (and no doubt much anticipated) next instalment of Adventures with Harvey! 😊

With much love as always

The Travelling Woodies

Video captions:

1. with apologies for the poor commentary, here is a look at the Rhine

2. the chocolate museum contained a small scale manufacturing facility to show us all how it's done (complete with reflection of the lovely Anita)

3. the inside of Cologne cathedral

Cologne cathedral is a beauty!

After the allied bombings

St Christopher - the saint of travel

this crucifix within the cathedral is made of timber and has been dated to 970AD

graffiti and scratchings made by prisoners of the Nazis in Cologne

a very grim place

right in the middle of town is a statue and garden, in the background is a Brauhaus where we quenched our thirst at the end of the day!

cacao beans - much larger than we expected

handmaking chocolates (a small working manufacturing facility is part of the museum)

highlight of the sports museum - this is Michael Schumacher's F1 Renault and race suit from the start of his career before joining Ferrari

your author in his happy place at the end of a day's exploring :-)

Phantasialand #1

Phantasialand #2

'rock on ice' show - these guys were excellent!

who knew shooting mice could be so much fun. equipped with 3D glasses you ride in a little car shooting the little critters with an imaginary icing run. it's a serious business as you can see!

a hunting lodge built in the mid 18th century and only 2km from the main Schloss (castle). such opulence!

a wander around the Schloss gardens

the lovely Anita was looking particularly photogenic today

as above

dipping our toes in the Rhine to cool off

a little happy hour platter :-)

this bad boy was dropped by the Germans in an attempt to blow up their own bridge. astonishingly it bounced off the bridge without exploding and was fished from the river in the 1980's

for such a small museum, the story and photographs were to notch!

Maria Laach church (and abbey) was consecrated in 1156 and is (from memory) only the second we've visited with actual Monks in residence, the other being Mont St Michel