Aachen Sights II

The Aachen Cathedral stands across the Katschhof from the Stadhuis.  The Katschhof is the central market and public area.  It is a remnant of the medieval shape of the city and the name, apparently, comes from the German term for pillory.  When I went through, there were some school groups who were having wheelbarrow races. 

This is a 360 degree video of the Katschhof.  It starts looking toward the Stadhuis and then circles around.  When the camera points toward the Cathedral, if you turn the volume way up, you can hear some of the musicians who were performing in the streets.

This is the North-East corner of the Stadhuis.  On the left, you can see the side of the Ratskeller restaurant. 

This is the Ratskeller, or City Hall Basement, Restaurant.  I think it is really cute.  It is so tiny, especially in comparison to the giant Stadhuis that it is cozied up to.   There used to be a giant horse sculpture, called Culinario, that stood in front of the restaurant (you can see some pictures of it on the restaurant website here).  It wasn't there when I was there, though.  Apparently, it got a parking ticket, for blocking the pathways for pedestrians through the marketplace.  It sounds like the restaurant is pretty sad about this and hopes to get Culinario back pretty soon.  

Shopping streets in the shadow of the Cathedral.

One of the shopping streets in the shadow of the Dom.

A fountain made out of metal marionettes.

I couldn't get a very good picture of this window, because of the glare, but this bread store looked amazing.  There are chocolate candy elephant cookies all over the place.  I am not sure about the significance of this but they were plentiful.

This is the name plate for St. Foillan Church which is right next to the Dom.  The plaque says that St. Foillan was a Scottish missionary bishop and martyr during the 7th century but St. Foillan (according to Wikipedia) was an Irish missionary of the 7th century.  Perhaps the Germans don't care to differentiate or perhaps there were more than one.  In any case, the church has had a storied history.  This says that the church was built in 1180, destroyed in a city fire on May 2, 1656, rebuilt in 1672, destroyed in a bombing on April 11, 1944 (so close to the end!), and rebuilt in 1958.  One upshot of all of this, as the sign notes, is that the building is is "gothic and neogothic with modern elements."

The stained glass windows over the alter in St. Foillan's Church.

This is a little video showing the front side of the Cathedral market and St. Foillan's.  If you turn the volume up a bit, you can here a busker (street musician) playing an accordion on the corner.

This was a booth in the Market in front of the Dom.  The sign says "Asparagus from Cleef Farms" (more or less).  They were selling asparagus there and demonstrating their nifty asparagus peeling machine.

People were pretty fascinated by the asparagus peeling machine and, I will admit, it was pretty fun to watch it in action.  People were also buying a lot of asparagus and strawberries because it was the height of the asparagus and strawberry season.  It smelled wonderful. 

I took this picture for Mom because of the sewing machine.  As far as I can tell, "Picco Bella" is Italian for "Beautiful Peak" or possibly "Point Beautiful".  The only Picco Bella I could find on the internet was some kind of cleaning, catering, and office supplier, as far as I could tell, but that doesn't have much to do with a sewing machine, so I don't really know what this is all about.

The weather was just beautiful when I was in Aachen and there were loads of people strolling through the city streets.  Since the streets are pretty narrow, it made it seem pretty claustrophobic.

This is Sankt Adalbert.  It is the second oldest church in Aachen, after the Dom.  It is a catholic church and is the base for the diocese of Aachen.  It is named after Adalbert of Prague, who was the Bishop of Prague but who was also a missionary to the Prussians.  He was martyred, in 999 (as far as I can tell) because he was too vocal in his condemnation of the Prussian practices of polygamy.  Saint Adalbert is actually one of the people commemorated in the giant statute in Wenceslas Square, in Prague, where I actually was.  I put a picture in my post here, although I think Adalbert is the statue that you can't see, to the back left of Wenceslas's horse.

I took this picture as I was walking around town on the way back to the bus station.  I just thought that it was interesting that the street was named after Martin Luther.  

I took this picture just for Mark.  I thought that it was pretty interesting that, of the five
things advertised for sale, three of them are alcohol.  ("Geschenke" means "gifts".)

Aachen Sights

The roundabout at the border where we swapped between the Dutch and German buses.

The Aachen Hauptbahnhof, or Main Train Station, where the bus stopped to drop us off. 

The horse sculpture in front of the Hauptbahnhof.   Horses were a popular theme throughout the city.

The view down the Theaterstraße or Theater Street.  The street splits and curves around the theater as the Theaterplatz. 

The theater is really beautiful.  It is roughly rectangular but the corners are rounded and it is very white and it really stands out.

 They were setting up for a performance of some kind when I went by. 

The front of the theater.

The horse statute at the front of the theater square.

This is the street across from the front of the Theater.  The restaurant where I ate lunch is just to the right of this picture.

This is a picture from the website of the Aachener Brauhaus, the restaurant where I had lunch, because I forgot to get a picture of it myself.  I chose this restaurant because, on looking through the menus, this seemed to have the most authentically German selections.  A lot of the other restaurants in the area seemed to be significantly Frencified.  You can see the website, which includes the menu, pictures, and other information, here.
I had the Schnitzel Wiener Art mit Kartoffelsalat--the Viennese style wiener schnitzel with potato salad--because that was the way that I remember having dinners when I was in Munich.  It was pretty good food (I especially liked the potato salad) and the building was very nice and had a lot of character.  However, I am not sure that it was an entirely traditional menu.  The potato salad had cucumber curls on it and the wiener schnitzel was served with little individual packets of mustard, which didn't seem quite right.  

There were statutes all around the city.  Some of them were peculiar and a bit bulgy.  There was a whole collection of these statutes around this fountain but I couldn't get a clear picture of all of them because people were in the way.

A corner of the Stadhuis--City Hall--with one of the outdoor restaurant areas that surrounded it.

Shops across the street from the Stadhuis.  A lot of the shops and streets where named after Charlemagne.

One of the beautiful shop facades that are scattered throughout the city.
As far as I know, this is actually real gold decorating the building.

For some reason, golden unicorns were a very popular theme.

One of the many statues of Charlemagne.  This one on a fountain in front of the Stadhuis.

A statuette of Charlemagne on the corner of the building.

A pharmacy named after Charlemagne. 

The Bus to Aachen

To get to Aachen from Maastricht, I took a bus which ran regularly between the two city centers.  There were no boarder crossings, or anything, because of the European Union.  I found this rather disappointing, as it would have been nifty to get stamps for going from country to country.  They did, however, make us swap buses at the boarder.  I am not sure why, especially because we didn't have to swap buses on the back, but we all got dumped off just on the Dutch side of the boarder, on a roundabout, and were picked up a few minutes later by a bus from the German side.  Fortunately, the buses took the same ticket card, no matter what side of the boarder you were on.

You could tell a real difference between the landscape in Germany and in the Netherlands (or at least in the Eastern Netherlands).  There are trees, and rolling hills, and  different kinds of fields.

What was especially impressive were the castles (or at least the castle-like buildings) which popped up through the trees all over the place.  I looked through the Google Maps to try and find what those castles might be and, while I couldn't find all of them, I think that I have identified one of them.

I think that this castle is actually a Benedictine Monastery in the Netherlands (the main road parallels the border for some ways).  The Abdij Sint Benedictusberg is just across the border into the Netherlands and reflects some of the differences between Maastricht (which is kind of Catholic) from all the rest of the Netherlands.  If you go here, you can look at the monastery's webpage, including pictures showing the distinctive conical towers, plus a little information about the monastery.

The bus ride was only about 45 minutes long but it was really shocking to step onto the bus more or less understanding what was going on around me and then to step off it, less than an hour later, and not to be able to understand what anybody was saying or even really to read signs all that well.

Sinterklaas versus Krampus

December 5th was Sinterklaas in the Netherlands.  This year, I was very sad to notice a lot less fun stuff and a lot less candy, in the good old U.S. of A. than they had in the Netherlands.  It was disappointing.  (To make up for it, you can look at the posts I did on Sinterklaas last year: part 1, part 2, and part 3.)

Now, I knew that many European countries have lots of different Christmas related holidays, many of which are quite weird.  (The Dutch Zwarte Pieten are one example.)  However, I may have found a wierdo tradition that beats all the rest to pieces.  This tradition is Krampus Day.  It originates in the Swiss and Austiran Alps and is also celebrated on December 5th, like Sinterklaas.  It also has a similar theme without being quite so racially sensitive or so Spain-ophobic.

On Krampus, mountain demons come into the towns to beat naughty children with birch whips and to drag the really bad ones into hell or into the mountain to eat.  It is quite the deal.  (You can look at the Wikipedia post here, if you would like.)  I have loaded a video of a Krampus song below.  It is only a couple of minutes long and gives a little history of the tradition and its origins.



If you want to be really creeped out, you can watch the video below.  It is about eight minutes long and is a video of a Krampuslauf, or Krampus parade, in the city of Gratz, Austria a few years ago.  It is pretty impressive and kind of disturbing.  I would strongly encourage you not to watch it right before bedtime.



If you still think that the less threatening Sinterklass is more for you, then you can read about how to celebrate the holiday (late) here.

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.

Back

Well, I am back in the States again.  It was 100 degrees in D.C. when I arrived.  I was pretty ready to turn around and fly back the Netherlands where it was 65.  Then, on the drive back, we got stuck in an almost tornado that dropped dozens and dozens of trees across the highway.  It was an exciting welcome home.  But, now I am sitting on the porch, and it is less than 100 degrees, at least at 6:30 in the morning EDST (12:30  in the afternoon, my time) and I have a good buddy who was awfully glad to see me and who seems pretty content to just hang out.

And here is another little "peak" at what I have been "up to"!

A Little London Update

Since I am wrting this from my little Kindle, which can't upload pictures, and since I don't want to spoil any surprises, I thought I would just give you a quick  glimpse at my trip to the U.K.

This morning, at at about 8:00 am, I ate a breakfast of a cumberland sausage on a roll, with a cappaccino,, while sitting in the sunshine, on a park bench, beside Westminster Abbey, looking out over the Parliament Buildings, and listening to Big Ben toll the hour.

So, spoiler, AWESOME!

The Almost Last Post (Kind Of)

When I set about to write this blog for you guys, I looked at some other travel blogs, just to see the kinds of things that people were writing about.  For starters, I was surprised at the number of blogs named "Hannah's Fun Traveling in Europe Blog" or some variation thereof.  I always forget how popular my name got a few years after I was born.  (It took a few years for  my fame to spread.)

Another thing that I noticed was that every. single. blog. began their last post with the sentence "I cannot believe how quickly the time has gone".  I swore then that I would not do the same thing for my last blog post.  Not so much because I oppose cliché (sometimes things are clichéd because they work) but because I hated to seem so derivative.  Well, having almost reached the end of my European Travels, I am terribly, terribly tempted.  I will remain strong, but it is a struggle.  Because events have proceeded with greater alacrity than would have seemed conceivable in the past and, indeed, than seems creditable at present.

Yesterday was the last time I will hear the early-warning sirens tested.  Yesterday I also had my very last exam.  (Although I do still have to finish writing my thesis and I do have a presentation later this week.)  This coming Sunday will be my next to last Dutch church service.  I probably won't need to go to the grocery store again because I will just be eating to clean out the fridge and my cupboard.  I will be flying out in just a little over three weeks.

It's been quick.

Not to worry though: what with one thing and another, I have not kept up with all of my exciting travels so I may be putting posts here for another year (or two).  I currently have about two months of draft posts waiting to be finished and at least another couple of weeks worth of posts for which I have not even organized a draft.  And, since I will be travelling to England and visiting Penny and her husband next week, and will be visiting Albania--with a little layover in Italy along the way--the week after that, I will still have loads and loads of things to talk about.  Maybe while I am house-sitting for Mom and Dad (since they plan on leaving on vacation as soon as I arrive to look after their stinky and varied fowl) I will have time to finish up all of those posts.

But in the meantime: I can't believe . . .

Kinderdijk

This was our boat, docked at Kinderdijk.  They had announcements in English, German, and Dutch about historical and cultural items of interest as we sailed up the Maas.  It was about an hour each way, with an hour at Kinderdijk.

After Jael had arrived, I got a Groupon offer to go to Kinderdijk (where I had gone previously) and we decided to do that.  This wasn't a Pancake Boat trip (that would have been way more expensive) but we did get a free coffee or tea with our ticket and one of the best things about Dutch coffee is that you always, always get a little cookie with your coffee.  Even if you order a piece of apple cake with your coffee (which Jael and I did on our way back, to get a "true" Dutch experience) you still get a little cookie.

This cookie with coffee or tea tradition is actually a really integral part of Dutch culture.  One of my colleagues at school said that she had taken a practice Dutch nationalization quiz (the kind of test you take if you want to become a Dutch citizen; she is Dutch but she just wanted to see what the tests were like) and one of the questions was about how many cookies you should serve with tea.  (The answer was two cookies.  I have always only gotten one cookie but maybe it is different with coffee.)

There's just something about windmills . . .

We had a pleasant day, walking around and chatting.  We didn't go in the working windmill because it was kind of expensive and it seemed like more fun just to stroll.



There were birds and ducks and things all over the place.  On the right is the ubiquitous coot.  On the left is some weird bird with a red head and pointy horns.  I don't know what it is but recently I saw one with babies and one of the babies was riding on its parent's back, like a loon.

Kinderdijk had a really good gift shop, plus a couple of others.  I think that we for sure decided to try the apple cake on the boat when we were in the shop because they had apple cake slices on display and they looked delicious.

Jael was so much fun to have along.
I did all of the touristy, fun things vicariously through her, got funny pictures, and didn't have to do anything but hold a camera.
Win-Win-Win.  (The other win is for you guys, since you get to see the pictures as well.