Westphalia – RV Travels in Europe and North America

October 26, 2024 Bonn GE

We were up early to get on the road to Bonn. But there was a delay while we tried to figure out who to pay for the previous night. The previous day we had called the campground, and they told us that they would give us a code to get in the gate. When we arrived there was no one at the campground. After we settled in I sent a text and asked how we should pay. We didn’t have an answer in the morning, and after waiting awhile we gave them a call and they told us to leave the money in a mailbox near the gate.

The Cathedral in Bonn with an interesting sculpture in front of it.

It was a busy drive from Frankfurt to Bonn, but we still made good time, and arrived a little before noon. The campground was open and fairly full, but once again no one was there to tell us what to do. After a while we found a note saying pick a spot and come pay us after 1pm.

Bonn is most famous these days as the birthplace of Ludwig von Beethoven. Bonn was also the capital of Germany when it was divided between the east and the west. Bonn was picked I assume because no one saw it as a permanent candidate to be the capital once Germany was reunified as it is a small city of around 320,000.

The downtown Saturday market is getting ready for Christmas.

We were both hungry and we wanted a typical German meal, so we headed to a Donner Kebab shop. The food was great and the place was buzzing so we enjoyed our meal.

Ton had been reading about Bonn on the way down the autobahn and told me that the third thing Bonn was famous for is being the birthplace of Haribo which I guess is the most popular gummy bears in the world. So as we were walking down the street we saw a giant Haribo store and headed in. Despite the fact that neither of us has ever had a Haribo gummy bear we ended up with about €20 of candy to take home as gifts. Also, the Haribo candy made in Europe is healthier than that sold in the US as they use a more natural sweetener.

Our selection of gummy candy to take home.

We then headed to Beethoven’s house to see where he grew up. It is a typical town home on one of the main streets of town. We discussed going in but it was getting late in the day so we started to head back.

As we were heading towards the bus stop we saw a nice beer hall and Ton said this was our last day in Germany and we hadn’t had a beer. I didn’t need any convincing so we toasted the German beer industry and then headed down to the bus stop.

On our way down to the Rhine we came across these kayakers hauling their kayaks back to their car.

Our campground is right on the Rhine River and on our way back from the bus we took a detour to walk down and take a close look at it. Across the river was an old castle and a new castle. At the base of the castles were vineyards that had turned golden.

The old castle, the new castle at the top of today post is just to the right.

June 2, 2024 Munster GE

We planned on going into Munster today, but when we woke up it was cold and grey. We lay around in François the morning and at noon we decided that if we were going into town we had better get moving.

We had forgotten how completely Germany shuts down on Sundays. The French have a reputation for taking it easy on Sundays but the Germans have them beat. All of the stores are closed and most of the restaurants are closed until 5pm. Even the breweries are shutdown.

Walking in we saw this sculpture commemorating the reunification of Germany in 1990.

When we got to the center of town the streets were empty, and the only thing open was the church. We were inside the church when I heard some sirens and a lot of engines on the main street. I stuck my head out and saw two motorcycle cops leading a couple of hundred motorcycles down the market street.

Part of the parade of motorcycles celebrating the finale of Motorcycle Week in Munster.

I asked one of the motorcycle cops what was going on and he told me that the parade of motorcycles was the finale to Munster Motorcycle Week. It was a good day as they had the downtown pretty much to themselves. We spent a little bit of time looking for an ATM, Germany does not charge a transaction fee to buy Euros, only the exchange rate. We were going to buy some for our next trip, but it looks like our debit card is suspended. Our bank has ended their 24 hour help line and directs you to their website which is manned by AI which does not understand, my debit card does not work in an ATM. So we finally gave up and went back to the church.

This pot was hanging from one of the columns of the church, we think it is for incense.

While we were in the church I checked the Sunday schedule for the bus and it said the last bus was in 12 minutes, so we cut our visit short and hustled to the bus stop. The time came and went but there was no bus 22, the board showed a bus 11. Ton and I were trying to figure what to do when a young German lady came up and asked us about bus 22. She was also confused that it had not showed up. We were planning alternative ways to get home, and she called her mother to look for a ride, when about 10 minutes late good old bus 22 pulled up and we happily jumped on board. The Germans have something to learn from the Poles about how to run a transit system.

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the campground.

June 1, 2024 Munster GE

Woke up early to see Fred and Denise off, and since we were up we decided to get an early start also. As we were saying good by to Fred and Denise we made preliminary plans to meet them somewhere in Europe next year.

We picked Munster as our next stop as it was most of the way to the Netherlands, and Denise gave it good reviews. The drive was relatively busy, and there were a couple of big construction sites, but we still arrived around 1:30. When we pulled in to the campground it was teeming. There were signs welcoming us to the summer fest, so I had already begun mentally thinking about alternative stops. But when I found someone he quickly assigned us a spot and told us to join the festival at 2:30.

We joined this table of Germans, but it turns out one of them was a Scot in disguise.

We headed over about 5pm and got a couple of beers and asked if we could join some Germans at their table. After we had been sitting for a few minutes one of them asked if we were from the UK. When we replied US she said she was a Scot. It turns out she had moved to Germany many years ago and was happily married to a nice German guy. We enjoyed chatting with them but Tons allergies are really bothering her so we had to decline their kind offer to join them for dinner and head back to François for the night.

June 11, 2019 Cologne GE

Today we departed Germany after 34 days. Germany was an easy place to travel, we enjoyed the country. It is a well organized and well run country. Ton enjoyed a lot of cities particularly Bamberg, Mainau, Lubeck, and the northern romantic road cities of Dinkelsbuhl, Rothenburg, and Wurzburg. I tended to lean a little more to the old East German cities of Lubeck, Schwerin, and Leipzig. We drank a lot of beer and while we had many good ones, we also had a lot of mediocre beer which was disappointing. The food is hearty and filling but not particularly interesting though we did gain an appreciation of sauerkraut.

Today we needed a work day, so we took advantage of the lower gas and grocery prices in Germany to fill up François before we departed. After arriving at our campground we got a load of laundry done.

When we were done we only had time for a quick walk thru the town outside of the campground. As this was our only day in the Netherlands we did what all good tourists do, we explored a grocery store to compare the inventory and prices with the other countries we have visited. The little suburb outside our campground was really well tended and clean which really is the stereotype of the Netherlands.

Our short walk thru the village was full of well tended homes like this one.

June 10, 2019 Cologne GE

Another long drive today as we decided it was time to move on from Germany. Just like with Spain we thought we had enough time to see most of Germany and it turns out we have missed most of the central part of the country. We wanted to make one more stop on our way out of the country in Cologne.

Cologne is one of the largest tourist destinations in Germany and has the most visited place in Germany in its Gothic Cathedral. Since it was on the way towards The Netherlands we decided to spend the night here. Again we were both up pretty early and got an early start so our drive to Cologne was nice and easy if a bit long.

We got a nice spot in the aire facing the Rhine River so we have spent part of the day watching the river barges going past. After settling down we headed towards the city center to join the crowds at the cathedral. Our route was along the Rhine, and for the last mile the path was a sprawling flea market. Between the flea market, the holiday and the five river cruise boats docked along the river the river walk was jammed with people.

One of the five river cruise boats docked along the waterfront.

We finally reached the cathedral, and had a quick walk around the exterior before going in. Much to our surprise the entrance was free. This cathedral is still Catholic unlike many of the churches we have been visiting lately which started out as Catholic, and were converted to Lutheran after the reformation. The exterior is massive and the spires are the main attraction. Construction was started in 1248 and suspended in 1473, it was finally completed in 1880 after over 400 years of suspension.

The exterior of the cathedral, it is hard to capture the scale of the building.

One of the gargoyles about 100 feet above ground.

The interior is attractive, and the stain glass is pretty though we presume it is all post WWII. The Cologne cathedral would probably make our top 10 list of cathedrals if we were keeping one, but closer to number 10 than number 1.

The interior houses a reliquary of the three kings, which was the original reason to build the cathedral.

The mosaics on the floor were extensive and intricate, they were the highlight of the cathedral for us.

Cologne is also famous as the originator of Kolsch Beer, so that was the next attraction we headed for. The first place we went was Peters Beerhouse where the first waiter asked if we were there to eat or to drink, we replied drink and he immediately showed us to a standup bar in a corner next to a bar, and the place where waiters return the used beer glasses. This was in a huge place that could easily seat several hundred and it was 90% empty. The tradition in Cologne is to serve beers in small glasses so that the beer remains cold, the server is supposed to come by frequently so you can get refills. In this case after the first round the waiter came by and said his shift was over so we needed to pay up. So we were out of there.

The server on the right in this picture is carrying the traditional Kolsch Beer Caddy, so he can provide cold beer on the spot.

Hoping that was an aberration we headed over to another famous Kolsch place which again was largely empty, this time we got to pick out table and sit, but the service was not particularly friendly so we decided to cut our losses and head on back to François thru the slightly less crowded flea market. Ton cooked a great German meal of pork cutlets, spatzle, sauerkraut and kraut salad so the day ended on a positive note as we enjoyed our meal while looking out on the river traffic on the Rhine.