Aachen

So.... 25 posts since I've been here, and as of today, I have been here for 6 months to the day, which means that I'm one post shy of having an average of a post a week.... pretty darn good.... now onto the good stuff:

First, I want to hear everyone try to say the name of this city properly: Aachen  (ˈä-kən, -ḵən). Good luck with that one. So Saturday I took a trip to the aforementioned city and had an absolutely wonderful time. This city is in Germany, on the edge of the border with Belgium and the Netherlands. It's rumored to have been Charlemagne's favorite city, and it's seen the coronation of many German emperors. This former spa town's cathedral and fountains were incredible. I've been somewhat cathedraled out as of late, but Aachen's takes the cake, in terms of mosaics in it.

Taking a step back though, on the way there I met some interesting people, one being a student from Mexico studying chemistry in Bonn, in the same building as I'm in, and who was going to the same place as I was. Another was a local Bonner who does marketing for several airlines who suggested I go to Portugal right now because the flights are cheap. My train ride back was just as 'interesting.' A  very drunk older German couple kept trying to engage me in conversation, but were not taking my reading a book as a hint. They had balloons all around them and blew up another one and tried to give it to me....Crazy! On the 2nd train, a lawyer was talking about how she had to go to Munich to be interviewed as a potential candidate to get an apartment....with 20 other applicants. Apparently rent is much higher there than here, and much more competitive....Enough with the train stories, of which I usually have plenty, but one more word about travel, if you can't lift your suitcase, don't pack it, and please, don't ask me to help you lift it..... thanks!

Me with the Rathaus behind me

I got into Aachen around 8:30am and there was no one awake yet. The area immediately around the train station could be any city, however as I worked my way into the center of town, the charm became apparent. Right next to the cathedral the market was beginning to be set up. I had the opportunity to take pictures all around town, before anything opened up, and without anyone else stepping into my viewfinder. As a result, I got some cool pictures of the fountains, and several of the cathedral (although it's hard to get a good full picture of it in this city). The pictures of one fountain became even more interesting later.... I strolled around the center, checking out the shops that I wanted to go into, and at 10, things finally opened up. I booked a city tour, and to fill the hour before it, I went shopping. I've decided it's dangerous to let me into specialty paper stores which have cute and smart postcards. I also went to the cathedral treasury. I made the mistake of getting the audio tour, but it wasn't worth it. There were ~5 small rooms with antiquities. The best thing I saw was a series of locks. Every 7 years, there's a pilgrimage, and with that pilgrimage, there's a new lock made and designed. Whether this is to lock people out, I'm not sure. The church is a major cultural draw for many people around the world.

Treasury courtyard

Me next to a Printen statue

Once on the tour I saw the Elisenbrunnen, which is a neo-classic hall surrounding a fountain, rebuilt after the war. The fountain is one of the few left with the natural hot springs underneath the city feeding it. There is also a water display behind the building, and it got blitzed by a marketing campaign of orange duckies. These duckies infiltrated all of the fountains in the city for quite a substantial time, until all the little kids (oh okay, me too), claimed them all.

Elisenbrunnen (view from the inside)

Ducky marketing blitz

We also saw a display of excavated earth exhibiting the many layers of time (neolithic, Roman, Medieval etc), we then moved to a fountain called Bahkauv. Apparently this creature was 'feared' by the drunk at night, when he would attack. The story goes that as the drunkards tried to walk home, this creature would sit on their shoulders getting heavier and heavier until the victim dropped and the creature got it. This is story that many drunk men told their wives about why they were so late getting home, that the Bahkauv was sitting on their shoulders making it so difficult. Next stop, past the Printen shops, and into a triangular 'square' which housed many older buildings.

Printen shop

The tour went past the cathedral, and told a story of how the cathedral was built. It was originally commissioned by Charlemagne and was quickly built. The story goes that as they were building the cathedral, they ran out of money and so they struck a contract with a wealthy man who gave them the money to finish it. Originally there were no stipulations to it, but the builders were suspicious of this, so they asked the man what he wanted. He stated that he wanted the first soul that walked into the church after it is was consecrated. The story got around and when it was time for the consecration, no one wanted to be the first one to go in, knowing that that person's soul would be taken by the devil. The solution was to stick a wolf in as the devil never said what kind of soul he wanted. The devil jumped on the wolf, sucking its soul out and then realized it wasn't human so enraged he left the church. On the way out, his hand got stuck in the lion's mouth on the door, and it was said that he left a finger in there that you can still feel. To be sure, on the right door, in the lion's mouth, there is a metal object in there, that is not on the left side, and the parents were telling their kids this story as they had their hands in there and then would go 'boo' to them and the kids jumped sky high. Hilarious! This was the end of my tour, left off at a great point.

Left lion

Right lion with a peg inside

 Many buildings didn't survive WWII because Aachen was a key city, but a few were still standing. You also won't find any traditional wood faced houses here from the Middle Ages, because a fire swept through the city centuries back and it became law that the homes couldn't be built with wood faces anymore, only stone. The city also didn't need its walls, so many home were rebuilt with stones from the surrounding fortress. We walked past the Couven Museum, which was also rebuilt after the war, and wound around to the Rathaus (City Hall), where Charlemagne was reported to formerly have his mansion at. Passing by the Couven Museum are several fountains. The fountains in the city each have their own story, however, as this was a former spa city, supplied by the hot springs, the fountains are representative of times past. The water from the fountains (the original sourced ones), also have a high content of sulfur, so many people used to have G.I. symptoms from drinking too much of it. What of course used to be the prescribed cure for these ails? Chocolate of course! You could only get it by prescription, so the original owners of the building that the Couven Museum is in made their fortunes as a pharmacy. One of the other things that the city is known for is Printen, a gingerbread like treat that can only be made and named Printen if from Aachen. A description of it can be found here:  http://bierandbiofuels.blogspot.de/2013/05/printen.html .

old building with stone from fortress walls

I proceeded to have lunch at a restaurant called 'The Living Room' and had ratatouille. Cute place, but the service was not so great. I walked around a bit until I got to the Couven Museum. This museum was re-built after WWII, and displays the living arrangements of 18th and 19th century, with well preserved furniture and Italian stucco. It blends Rococo and Aachen-Liege design. It also carries a replica of the Adler Apotheke. My favorite room is one where there are differently painted tiles across the entire room. On the walls going up the staircase to the upstairs rooms, were photos of the original museum, WWII destruction of it, and the view of the reconstructed one.

Couven Museum Apotheke recreation

Dining room at Couven Museum

Interesting tile room in Couven Museum

Close up of tile

Even more tile

Couven Museum before the war

Post-war destruction of Couven Museum

Modern day Couven Museum

Next up was a visit to the cathedral. Stepping inside the cathedral led me to an awestruck moment. The interior of the church is octagonal, suspended from the ceiling is the Barbarossa chandelier, the ceiling is coated in magnificent mosaic tiles, and each section has a different design. After walking through the bottom section, I signed up for a tour, which would allow me access to the vault where Charlemagne's remains are and to the throne of Charlemagne where 30 German kings and 12 queens were coronated. The throne was nothing fancy to look at, but getting to see the other areas and views within the church was well worth it..... Of course I missed the English tour, so I ended up on the German tour, catching bits and pieces here and there. Words can't really describe this cathedral, you just have to visit it yourself.

Ceiling at Aachen cathedral

Original frescos

Charlemagne's remains

Detail on the 'casket'

Throne (at least 1000 years old) used for coronations

After the cathedral, I walked around a bit, went to a bookstore to get some new releases in English, and ended up having dinner at a restaurant called Common Sense, which had vegetarian, vegan, and fish dishes. I had the Aubergine gefüllt mit Kichererbsen & Spinat an Tomaten-Sauce mit Käse überbacken dish with sweet potato fries. What in the world is that? Eggplant stuffed with chickpeas and spinach in tomato sauce topped with cheese. It was ok, the chickpeas didn't add much to it in my opinion, but paired with a nice wine, it was the perfect end of my day before heading back.

Aachen Theater

Train station horse statues- The is a major horse race in Aachen every year, one of the biggest in the world

One last thing about Aachen, as I mentioned before, there are a bunch of fountains, so lets recap which ones I saw, and if I know any additional story that I hadn't mentioned yet, I will now. I know I didn't see them all, but I did see quite a few. Several stories come from Sabine Rother documented at http://www.aachen.de/en/ts/PDFs/Fountains.pdf

I saw Huehnerdieb, which is across from the Couven Museum. It's about a chicken thief who was trying to steal chickens and also caught a rooster. The rooster made a ruckus and so the thief was caught, and thus a fountain was also made.

Next up was Karlsbrunnen. This fountain is in front of the rathouse, and is supposed to be an image of Charlemagne, made 200 years after his death. Apparently there's a university tradition, when you graduate with a masters or PhD, the student would climb the statue and pose hilariously, so the one in the square is now a replica.

Kreislauf des Geldes, is one of the main fountains that was attacked by duckies. The story behind this one is that it represents the vicious capitalistic society, where you have the beggar begging for money, the father giving his daughter money and it's represented with her dipping her hand near the water, the water representing the money system. Next is the politician or banker who is taking a bribe from a man, the man getting money from his wife, and around it goes around in this swirling pool of water.

I saw Bahkauv, who's story is described earlier. 'This monument was designed in 1967 by Kurt-

Wolf von Borries from Cologne-Junkersdorf. The Bahkauv (translated as River Calf) is a legendary being that is half panther and half dragon. According to legend, in the old days the Bahkauv came jumping up from the depths of the Aachen fountains late at night and landed on the necks

of the drinkers who were on their way home.' (http://www.aachen.de/en/ts/PDFs/Fountains.pdf)

Next up was the Elisenbrunnen, rebuilt after WWII, and is one of two or three fountains still connected to the underground springs. 'This fountain was built by the architect Karl-Friedrich Schinkel (1882 - 1927) and was named after the Crown Princess Elizabeth, the subsequent wife of King Frederick Wilhelm IV of Prussia. Inside the rotunda (the round building) the Aachen water flows into a couple of basins. This water is hot and has its own strong “fragrance”.' (http://www.aachen.de/en/ts/PDFs/Fountains.pdf)

Fischpueddelchen- '“Fischpüddelchen“ and was designed by Hugo Lederer in 1911. Public outcry about the naked boy at the time reached such a scale that for a while the fountain needed to be guarded by police.' (http://www.aachen.de/en/ts/PDFs/Fountains.pdf)

Another fountain is the Paradiesbrunnen, which resides in the square right next to the cathedral treasury.

My favorite is Puppenbrunnen, which can be manipulated to have many messages about politics and time, and many hidden insidious messages can be read. Particularly of the history of mocking various political regimes such as the Prussian rule. '“Puppenbrunnen“ (Fountain of the Puppets) that was created by Bonifatius Stirnberg in 1975. The fountain is decorated with some wonderful bronze puppets that can be made to move. The figures show the Aachen characters of the canon, market woman, professor, legionary on horseback, harlequin and the fashion model.' (http://www.aachen.de/en/ts/PDFs/Fountains.pdf)

I also saw Spatzenbrunnen (Möschebrunnen).  This fountain was sculpted by Bonifatius Stirnberg in 1987. When you press the button, water will flow out of the large ball.

Next up is the Vinzenzbrunnen, which resides right next to the cathedral.

That's all of the fountains I saw on this particular trip (9 of them total), and there are at least another 7 that I know I didn't get a chance to see. Talk about paying beautiful homage to their historic roots.