Exploring Germany

Now that I have settled into life in Jülich (and on a good day I can get to the office without getting lost), I decided it was time to explore the surrounding area.  There are many larger cities surrounding the small town such as Düsseldorf, Cologne, and Aachen.  However, to get to any of them, the first hurdle is to attempt to understand German public transportation. Although now a pro, the first time, this was a truly terrifying experience – without the help of some very friendly locals I think I would still be stuck in Düren to this day. Jüilich has one “train” (the rutalbahn) this is more of a tram than a train and just to show how quaint it actually is, once when I was on it, it almost crashed into a tractor.

Cologne Cathedral

The inside of Aachen Cathedral

The first major city we visited was Cologne. This city certainly knows how to give a good first impression, as soon as you get off the train you are immediately faced with what has to be the largest cathedral I have ever seen. It towers over the station and the rest of the city but however grand it is, it is far from beautiful. This impression may have been tainted by the large quantity of scaffolding that seems to be a constant feature of the design. From what I gather, each city in Germany has its own beer and in Cologne this is Kölsch. This beer is traditionally served in 20cl glasses (yes, that is barely a mouthful) however, as soon as your beer is empty they will just bring you a new one straight away whether you ask or not. Cologne is also home to the Lindt chocolate museum, and I would advise anyone to go there – not only for free chocolate, fine, mostly for the free chocolate but it was an interesting day out too.

A day trip to Aachen with the other guest students and a special appearance from Nick (photo taken by Калоян Генков: if you would like to see more click here! 

The Charlemagne museum.

Aachen, is a smaller city located right on the border of Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands and therefore also a good place to go for chocolate also being home to a Lindt factory. Unfortunately, the factory is closed on Sundays, so we couldn’t go.  Aachen also has a cathedral, whilst being only 1/5th of the size of the Cologne cathedral the architects certainly have made up for this in terms of beauty. The cold Gothic stone of Cologne cathedral has been replaced by a much more simplistic style – it looks as if 10 different architects all individually designed a section, then put it together without consulting each other. However, most of the beauty comes from the inside,which is almost entirely covered by bright gold mosaics and marble columns creating a very beautiful design. Aachen, is famous for the palace of Charlemagne, therefore we decided to go to the Charlemagne museum this, I presumed, would have a lot information on the history of Aachen, however, as it was almost exclusively written in German, so I have no idea.

The Irish Pub (sorry for the blurry picture)

The main source of exploration has been to the Irish pub in Jülich. There is a sign on the wall stating “Our house wine is…. Jägermeister” and I think this sums up most of the nights there pretty well.