A little travel tip for the easily confused. Bruxelles-Midi is the main railway station in Brussels. It's another name is Brussels-Zuid. Brussels-Central is a completely different station and Central should not be confused with Midi or Zuid.
Or so I was told; obviously I wouldn't be that much of a tourist to make such a rookie mistake ...
I've had a couple of interesting travel days. Train to Neuss (via Dusseldorf) was a piece of cake. Neuss is pronounced just the way they pronounce 'Nice' in 'Kath & Kim'. We were there for a sales conference and it was quite the opportunity to meet and greet a whole lot of people. I wandered about, chatting and engaging as best I could leaving the main players with the good and positive messages. We took lunch outside and the sun came out and, for the first time in a month, I was actually warm and took my coat off. It was 'noice' in Neuss!
That evening we drove to Brussels to visit a factory in Tisselt; a small suburb in the Brussels industrial zone. Quite a neat operation and we had some great discussions about the business and what benefits could come from some of our collective experience and knowledge. This brought on a pretty vigorous discussion but alls well that ends well and we left with exchanges of hand shakes and business cards.
So coming up to 7pm on Friday night and I'm back on the ICE train (Inter City Express for those who enjoy their three letter acronyms explained) heading back to Bonn via Cologne for the weekend.
For those who recall me bagging Dixieland Jazz last week, I did make the concession that I would head back to Sonja's in Friedrichstrasse (for you GoogleMaps freaks). According to the website, there was to be a special Wednesday night with some boogie-woogie music. But I had learnt my lesson from Sunday afternoon. The gig was supposed to start at 7:30 so I arrived at about 6:45. By this time there were still seats available but only at the bar. So I grabbed a stool and ordered eine bier, this time with a little more savior faire. Buoyed by this success I noticed they had bar meals going as well so I ordered Schnitzel Goulasch. While this was going on, a bloke started chatting to me and I answered in English. God bless him, he spoke enough English for us both. Like so many folk in Bonn, he sings in a choir. Actually two; one is for more senior folk aged 55+ and they sing 'modern songs'. I never really got to understand what he thought was modern because he then said that every three months they got together with another choir but this choir has members aged 18-25. The two choirs then perform a concert together singing songs they have been practicing separately. The delight in his face as he was telling me about their performances; how there was so much laughter and enjoyment as the two very different choirs shared their music; how the audience would stand, clap and then dance to the music. It was lovely!
I made the mistake of asking if he played an instrument. He did play guitar and banjo in (you guessed it!) a Dixieland band. I managed to smile and say how 'noice'. Actually, having tried to play a bit of guitar myself I could empathize with him about how challenging the chords would be in Dixieland. For that half moment, his face fell for the only time that evening. He held his somewhat gnarled left hand up and told me how heart broken he was when his doctor told him that he would have to stop playing guitar.
But as quickly as it fell, his smile returned and he told me how he was now learning piano and how passionate he was about boogie-woogie piano. He'd ridden his bike in from Poppelsdorf (about 5-6km) just for the performance.
With that the Goulasch arrived and the piano player sat down and began to play.
It was great! The Goulasch was like a dark meat soup that was so hot! Hot from the pot but also from the paprika running through it. The little room had now filled up so that it was packed with maybe 50 people listening. So it was warming up with the latent heat of people, but every couple of minutes I was compelled to remove my coat and then the jumper I was wearing as the heat of the soup relentlessly left me a sodden little puddle at the bar. Not even a couple of beers and some brown bread were enough to put out the growing fire.
In the meantime, this piano player was bouncing along playing his tunes. For Allan and Helen, he actually looked a little like our now sadly departed Andrew Halmos. And could he play!
As luck would have it, my new friend and I thought there was to be a bass and drums as well but it was just the piano player and our spot at the bar was right behind him.
So I swiveled on the barstool between my soup and watching this guy's hands bounce wonderfully around the keyboard. Albert (I'm pretty sure that was his name) was watching him like a hawk, trying to work out the riffs and the timings. Albert seemed to spend half his time studying and the other half shaking his head and telling me how he could never play like this.
But almost as soon as he decided he could never play like that well, he was straight back to watching and studying. We clapped along to the faster songs and, like the rest of the crowd, we applauded delightedly at the end of each piece.
Wednesday night at Sonja's has a bit of a regular gig happening so I think I might keep my eyes peeled and head down for a drink and a cheap meal. It was a good night!
Sunday now and I thought I'd catch the 66 tram to its terminus in Bad Honnef. I did want to check out Rolanseck and Grafenwerth as I had already seen them with Nina who was showing me around as part of my orientation visit a couple of weeks back. I decided to walk up to Bad Honnef centre as it was getting on toward time for a coffee and I thought I'd find a bakery and fill up with some portable lunch - bread rolls and scroll of some kind would get me thru the day I hoped.
Believe it or not, there was a trash and treasure market happening in the town city hall square (or Rathausplatz, as they say here). If you could close your ears, it was as if you were at the local suburban market in any town in Australia. Cars and trailers were backed into position and goods were laid out in tables or bed sheets on the ground.
For Rob, I saw German Zane Gray paperbacks. I know Rob's dad was a big fan of the paperback western.
For my dad, I was watching a guy going through a box of 'junk' (although Dad has a special definition of junk, hence the inverted commas above) and it was so familiar. The guy looking to buy was trying not to look too interested as he checked every single item in the box. And the guy selling the 'junk' was watching like a hawk and you just knew no matter whatever the buyer held up, it was going to cost 1 Euro and you knew the whole box had only cost 2 Euro for the whole thing! So strange to watch this playing out when I'd seen it happen so often more than 22 flying hours away back in Melbourne.
So the half hour I spent checking out the market was just good fun. I'd have been there longer if I had enough German to read their second hand books.
So filled with coffee and with lunch in the pack, I headed back to the river. The trip from the main railway station in Bonn to Bad Honnef takes about 30 minutes. The tram spends about half of this time underground and the rest On the surface. But the last 6-7 stops are all on the surface and follow the Rhine with only a paved walk/bike trail between the tram and the river. It is very picturesque and gets you ready for how restful and pretty Bad Honnef really is. A genuine village just 15km from Bonn.
Just a quick walk over the bridge near the station gets you to the island of Grafenwerth. Set up with a Biergarten, Nina told me this is one of the places to come when the weather improves and the trees are green. Open playing fields abound, the pub is well set up for many people to sit outside and enjoy a quiet, sunny afternoon with the river on both sides. The smaller inlet has rowing boats and pleasure craft while the main channel has the barges and tankers running their standard route; the cargo must get through!
But nothing was open today so I'll put this one into the memory bank and make sure to get down here in the spring or summer time.
The other place Nina had told me about was Rolandseck station. Built in the 1850's, it is something of an iconic structure and has attracted folk with an artistic bent since that time. Today the basement is set up as the Arp Museum. Dedicated to Hans Arp, one of the founders of the Dada school back the early 1900's. It was about then that my eyes began to glaze over a little; rather than pretend to be interested I'll be terribly honest and say that the building looks marvelous and I'm sure Herr Arp is a genius but his genius was a little lost on me.
I did walk up to the top floor of the station and found the Rolandseck Restaurant. This is one of those special places to dine, apparently. As I wandered up I noticed their specials of the day had no prices beside them. I took this to mean that if you were to dine here then the price would be unimportant. Apparently, this is the case. Come to the restaurant, enjoy the food, the ambience, the view and work an extra week to pay for it. Might be me one for the 25th anniversary Pete?
To get to the Rolandseck station, you have to catch a ferry across the Rhine. This is still a bit of fun for me and hasn't become the chore it obviously is to the locals. Half way across the river you can see another part of a collapsed medieval castle way up on the hill.
Once I'd stumbled around the station for a bit, I headed up to the ruin. I know hills make great fortification sites but the always seem to pick the highest, steepest gradient to plonk them! And our German friends have no hesitation in cutting paths that seem to run directly up the hill rather than in nice easier switch back style path ways. I guess the good part is the climb might be tough but it is over quickly. As ever, the views from these vantage points are breathtaking. There has been a mist over the region for the last few days but today had a bit of a breeze flowing and, with any luck, the pictures will show clear views of the river and Bad Honnef.
Here's the view from the river looking up to the arch. I love that the arch is called 'Rolandsbogen'; it's a tough climb so maybe only bogans should try it?!
What do you think?I tried one image to look through the arch and see the Drachenfels castles (medieval and 19th Century) off in the distance.
Just another lovely day. It is neat to be extending my range; this time using the tram system.
I would like to get a bike but I have found that Germany doesn't import a great deal of anything from China. All the bikes are German made and are absolutely wonderfully engineered but the down side is the cheapest new bike I've seen is around 500 Euro. But I have found a second hand bike shop near the University and I might head there and see what they have to offer for something a little more affordable. Having a bike would be fun and seriously extend my range around town, especially along the river as it is pretty flat along there. The second hand bike shop might be due for a visit next weekend.
Talk to you soon!
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