A Trip to Aachen (Aix-de-Chapelle)

One of the fun things that I got to do while I was in the Netherlands was to go over to Germany.  I had a discount card for the trains which meant that it was really cheap to travel most places.  So I decided that I wanted to go as far south in the Netherlands as I could.  This happens to be Maastricht, by quite a lot.

This map shows Rotterdam in relation to Aachen.  The Netherlands is outlined in orange and Belgium is outlined in yellow.  Germany is to the right. 

Then, when I was doing some pre-travel research, I realized that I could head over to Germany really easily. There is a bus service that runs between Maastricht and Aachen and the round-trip fare was 7,50 euros (about $10).  The buses ran every half-hour for most of the day, which made travel planning super-convenient.  I was psyched to check out Germany and to see if their brats were as good as I remembered.

 One of the big tourist attractions near Aachen is the Three-Country Point (which is circled in red above).  At this point, you can stand in Gemany, Belgium, and the Netherlands at the same time.  They have a maze, a picnic area, and a museum.  That point is also about two miles away from the highest point in the Netherlands--Vaalserberg (Mount Vaals).  You can see some information about the Drielandenpunt here.

The map below shows (more or less) the route I took around Aachen, checking out the different big, famous buildings and tourist attractions.






This is a video tour of Aachen.  It is kind of long (about 8 minutes) and the music is really annoying but it does show a lot of the city that I walked around while I was there, including some of the famous historical videos.

A Little Bit More About Prague

I was looking through some videos and I found this one of Prague.  It lasts about three minutes and has music but it was fun looking through and being able to say "I was there!"  Most of the views are over the Vlatav River, which surrounds the old city, but it also includes interior views of St. Vitus's Cathedral.