Römisches-Germanisches Museum (and some slightly lower-brow diversions)

We took advantage of this month's Goethe Institute trip to get cheap train tickets to Köln. Instead of taking the tour again, we went to the Römisches-Germanisches Museum. This was our 5th museum in as many weeks, and we are starting to feel the museum fatigue. Actually, I'm starting to feel it and Tyler pretty much can't handle it anymore. When we were counting the museums he wanted to include churches in the count, too. I can visit churches all day long, but Tyler is not as gung-ho. (In case you're interested, the first four museums were: Beethovenhaus, House of German History, Kunst (Art) Museum Bonn, and the Arithmeum, a museum that primarily displays calculating machines, which is more interesting than it sounds. You might also count the displays housed in the fortress at the BUGA, which would bring the museum total to 6.)

The Römisches-Germanisches Museum has a very nice collection, including this amazing Roman mosaic.



The mosaic (which was the floor of a banquet room in a Roman villa) was discovered in the 1940s during the digging of bomb shelter. The museum was built around the mosaic. One of the central figures is Dionysus, Greek god of wine; others are his attendant nymphs and things. Here are some detail shots.







This is a Roman funeral monument, also found in Köln.



And here's another huge mosaic, this one depicting seven wise men of ancient Greece. It was discovered in 1844.



I particularly enjoyed the jewelry displays.



This is a gorgon mask. Notice the freaky snake head sticking out of her hair.



After the museum we hid from the pouring rain in a little pizza place that turned out to be quite good. Naturally, we also stopped by Merzenich for a Nougat Brezel.

Speaking of pizza, we spent half a day a couple of Fridays ago on a quest for pizza. We had spent the morning searching for apartments, and after making two calls in German each we were drained and starving. So Tyler found a website called pizza.de and we set out across town to try the reputed best pizza in Bonn. It's called Pizza Mann, and it took us about an hour to get there by bus and foot. We had a pizza with bacon, creme fraiche, large chunks of potato, and ridiculous quantities of cheese. It was immensely satisfying.

This past Friday we undertook another food-driven journey: we took the train to the Haribo factory store in Bad Godesberg. It was roughly the size of a grocery store, and was filled with people (mostly adults) buying boxes and boxes of fruchtgummi. We bought several different varieties ourselves, but I felt positively restrained by comparison with most of the other shoppers.



Our haul: cherry-cola bottles, black currant-flavored German flags, chocolate-covered marshmallows, some sour chewy things, extra-sour pugs, and ginger-lemon gummies. The things I've tried so far have been tasty, but I feel a little sick every time I think of our shelf stuffed with fruchtgummi.

The Fanciest Castle Ever

Okay, so this was only my second castle ever, but it's really really fancy! Anyway, this is the first place we've been that we feel totally committed to showing to visitors. It was so, so fun. Come visit us and see!

First, Königswinter, a charming town half an hour south of us down the Rhine. These hollyhocks grow all over the place in the Bonn area.



Next, the Drachenfels. Königswinter not only has a ridiculous castle, it has romantic ruins just up the hill. Drachen means dragon--there's apparently some dragon legend associated with this place, but I don't know what it is because none of the signage was in English. Maybe the legend has something to do with the volcanic activity on the hill that I'm pretty sure one sign described.

Here is tiny Tyler with the main chunk of the ruins, and me with another piece.



There are amazing views of the Rhine valley and surrounding hills from up there. We could see all the way to Köln and could even make out the cathedral (not pictured). I'm a bit surprised the Köln cathedral isn't visible from space.




On to the main event. This castle was built between 1882 and 1884 by the son of a Bonn innkeeper. He had done very well for himself in speculation of some kind. He was made a baron in 1881, before he started building his castle, but I think he'd already started planning it before he was technically an aristocrat.


Doesn't it look more like someone's idea of a romantic castle than an authentic castle? Even to my extremely inexpert eye there seem to be some anomalies, like these guys (around the base of the bow window). They look like they belong in a Polish church from the year 13o0 or something.


It seems this guy just took all the palatial elements he could think of (such as golden stags), chose the ones he liked best, and used his new money to make it happen. But that's probably what makes it so fun to see.


This is the main staircase.


Here's a really cool ceiling. We didn't take the guided tour (because it was in German and would've been a waste of money at this point in our studies) so we couldn't go into all of the rooms, but we could peer over the thresholds.


A beautiful bookcase in the library.


This is the ceiling of the drinking room. Seriously.


There is a polar bear on the floor. I think there are also some fancy slippers in the background. At some point when our German is better I want to go back and take the tour so I can see these things up close.


The castle remained in private hands until the early '80s, when it was donated to the state and extensively refurbished. The final touches were just finished last year.

P.S. On our way back from Königswinter we spotted this extremely important piece of news:


Gummy bears have surpassed Beethoven as Bonn's #1 export! I'm not sure what this means, exactly. Was Bonn previously exporting more Beethoven-related stuff than gummy bears? Or are the gummy bears now the greater tourist draw? We may have to go to the Haribo factory to find out. Stay tuned...

A Taste of Bonn

We've been in Bonn about three days now. We've had two days of German class and know maybe ten verbs between the two of us. Tyler and I are in separate classes; he gets more homework.

BEETHOVEN. He's big in Bonn. He was born here.



















This is the view from the bridge over the Rhein. We live very close to this church, on the opposite side of the river from central Bonn.















Bonn is ridiculously cute. Here's a piece of castle in a square in the middle of the old town. We ate lunch by the fountain in front of it yesterday.



Also in the ridiculously-cute vein: a tea shop.



















Some shots of the cathedral (Münster) in the city center:



















The organ (along with all the stained glass) was destroyed in WWII. The organ was rebuilt between the early 1960s and '80s.



















The view out our front window tonight:















And out the back. Note the rainbow.















I know, I know. You're dying of jealousy. Frankly, I don't blame you.

P.S. It's not just Düsseldorfers. We have found many more Paradiese here in Bonn, including this one. For my dad, calling this shop paradise isn't much of an exaggeration.