I’ve had a really busy day today and I’m going to pay for it tomorrow. But ask me if I care!
I’ve always said that I’ll do what I have the opportunity to do whenever I have the opportunity to do it, and today was just like that.
Remember when I went shopping with Alison last weekend? She ended up not buying a ski suit but she did manage to pick one up during the week. But she decided that she would go to look for another one today – in Aachen, Germany, to be precise. Did I want to go?
Well, do bears go for picnics in the woods?
Last night was another typical bad night with an interruption in the small hours as usual. And that’s annoying me as you can imagine. But I made it into the kitchen for breakfast bang on time all the same.
Now here’s a thing that is more than unusual. it’s more than surprising too, and certainly extraordinary. And that is that I was down at the Delhaize in town, doing my shopping and back in my room afterwards for 09:00. When did that ever happen?
By 11:00 I’d showered, shaved, had clean clothes, all of that and gone outside where Alison was waiting for me.
And so, all aboard, we headed off eastwards down the motorway to Aachen. We farhn, fahrn, fahrn’d down the autobahn, in fact.
The weather could have been better though. It was cold, although not that cold, and grey and overcast with snow flurries throughout the day.
We arrived at Aachen where the snow had beaten us to it, and first stop was to sort out some clothing for Alison.
While Alison was searching around in the shops I went for a little wander around in the vicinity. Of course, when women are buying clothes, there’s plenty of time to do that, and even more so when people are in the queue for paying.
It seems that almost everyone in the city was shopping for ski-wear. After all, it’s Carnival quite soon and this is the traditional time for the kids to hit the slopes.
From there, we walked up the hill into town past some nice fairly-modern brick-built buildings that looked quite nice and blended quite well into the surroundings.
A coffee was next, and Alison knew a pretty good cafe. And I’ve drunk much worse coffee than that, I can tell you. I was surprised though, that there was no public toilet in there. I wonder what the EU would have to say about it.
But it does reinforce everything that I have said about the different attitudes that different countries have. Most countries agree to everything, and then have a very lax attitude about enforcing it. The UK fights tooth-and-nail, wasting everyone’s time, about various legislation, end then enforces it to the most ridiculous lengths. Remind me to tell you one day about the tip at Leek.
After the coffee we went off up the hill into the city centre, and while Alison went off in search of a woolly hat to go with her new ski jacket that she had bought, I went off for a wander around.
Luckily, Aachen was spared the worst excesses of the Allied terror-bombing of World War II so there is a great deal of the medieval city remaining, despite the American shelling and the SS demolition squads during its capture in October 1944.
And while it’s not the most attractive medieval city that I’ve ever visited, it certainly retains a lot of its charm.
The Town Hall, or Rathaus, which I always thought was a quite appropriate name for a town hall in any country or any language, was damaged during the capture of the city, but you would never ever think so from just looking at it.
And I don’t just mean the quality of the restoration either. The building could do with a really good clean for a start and it would look so much better if they were to take the time to do it.
One of the things that I did like about the Rathaus were the beautiful medieval wooden buildings – a pub so Alison told me, that were attached to the side, taking advantage of the stone wall of the Rathaus at the back.
It’s not the first time that we’ve seen this style of construction. There’s the same kind of construction in Belgium at a church near the Bourse that has wooden buildings constructed against it. It certainly saves on construction materials
Round the side of the central square was another small square tucked away out of sight. Alison told me that there was a restaurant there that had vegan food advertised on the menu, so that sounded like a good place to go for lunch.
It’s over there at the back, on the right, hidden by what look very much like historical remains. And I was intrigued to see these remains still standing – they look like the kind of remains that would have fallen down years ago.
Alison had a salmon steak and new potatoes, and my vegan ratatouille made with fresh vegetables of the day was even better. It was a little over-priced in my opinion, but it was still delicious and light years away from a bag of chips.
It too was served with sliced new potatoes and that worked so well that I’ll be trying this as soon as I can, now that I have a bag of spuds to play with.
But I didn’t think that the name of the restaurant was appropriate – fancy calling it the Living Room, which could be translated into Lebensraum, the project which concerned the Nazis invading Eastern Europe and exterminating its population.
And I shan’t say anything about setting the décor on fire either.
Outside the Living Room there was a view of the cathedral, to the right of the historic arches, and if you excuse the building work and the crane thing in the way.
It’s not the best view in the world but unfortunately, like many other well-preserved medieval cities, the cathedral is tightly hemmed in by buildings and it’s not possible to do any better than this.
If the RAF and the American artillery can’t clear the scene, neither can I
The cathedral itself is a magnificent pile and I expect that you are waiting with bated breath to see a whole raft of photos of the gorgeous interior, the tomb of Charlemagne, and all kinds of relics, including building materials such as marble that were sent by Pope Hadrian I to incorporate into the construction
Unfortunately there was a person loitering just inside the interior whose task it is to pounce upon anyone pointing a camera at anything, and demand a “licence fee” for the privilege of so doing.
Clearly the cathedral authorities have never ever heard of “Christian Charity” and don’t understand the concept of “sharing”. It’s not the first time that I’ve passed comment on the quality and value of the treasures contained in a church – something that goes totally against the concept of Jesus viz “give all thou hast to the poor”, but when it even comes down to naked exploitation and profiteering of the idea of sharing images of what the church possesses, then I’m convinced that there is something totally wrong with the church’s morality.
The oldest part of the Cathedral dates from 792 and is part of Charlemagne’s Palace – probably the only surviving part. And its rare octagonal shape is an indication of its age.
The stained glass therein is stunning too and all in all, it’s quite an impressive building. One day I shall go back – alone – and bring you back some photos to demonstrate what I mean.
The streets surrounding the cathedral are not without interest. Small, tight and cobbled – the very typical medieval street scenes that were swept away in the mid-20th Century in most cities in the UK
And this sculpture was quite exciting too. All of the models on it are mobile and can be manipulated around. It drew quite a crowd and I had to wait ages for a suitable opportunity to photograph it, when there was no-one else loitering in the vicinity.
Aachen is quite a historic city.
Settlement dates back to neolithic times and was settled by the Romans, attracted to the site by the warm sulphur springs. It was in fact on the frontier of the settled Roman area.
Excavations have taken place in the city from time to time and some of the discoveries are on display, like this site in one of the town squares that is surrounded by a glass case. I particularly liked the idea of the drainage channel just here in the foreground.
The warm springs are just lower down from where these ruins are located, and I went off for a taste. Very sulphuric, and quite warm too. The taste was disgusting, but I had to try it. No point in being here if you don’t do something like that.
There is no photograph of the springs, and no photograph of the plaques with the list of names of the notable personalities who came here to take the water. This was because at this moment we were engulfed in something of a snowstorm.
As the snow eased off we walked back to the car.
Parts of the town are still decorated for Christmas, and some of the shop windows are phenomenal. This was one of my favourites, with the snowmen and other winter scenes, but there were plenty of others too.
And I can’t get over the bakeries either. I love German bread – there is just so much of it and it’s all good, and Aachen is no exception. Thoughts such as working out where the railway station might be in connection with the railway line to Leuven started to run through my mind.
As it grew dark, we hit the highway and headed for home. The return journey was quite quick and I was back here by 18:15. Many thanks to Alison for a good day out.
My day wasn’t finished though. OH Leuven were playing at home against Tubize, kick-off 20:00, so I braved the snowstorm and the freezing cold to go down there, grabbing a bag of chips on the way.
For a change, I wasn’t behind the goal but high up in the stand along the touchline level with the edge of the penalty area. A grandstand view, especially of down there where I usually sit.
AFC Tubize looked the better side and they had a player, the n°97, who looked streets ahead of anyone else on the field. His name is Jae-Gun Lee and he’s a recent signing, aged just 19, from Korea.
He’ll go far in European football, that’s for sure. Remember that you heard his name first on here
But OH Leuven went into the dressing room 1-0 up at half-time, rather against the run of play, thanks to an audacious step-over in the penalty area that totally flat-footed the Tubize defence.
I said that there was still plenty of time for OH Leuven to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and how prophetic those words were. From the first attack of the second half, Tubize won a penalty and it went all downhill after that.
And so in the torrential snowstorm that we were having, OH Leuven’s hopes drifted away. Tubize ran out 3-1 winners, and ended with the crowd booing the home side and cheering on the visitors.
That was rather harsh because OH Leuven had tried very hard, but their final ball was always falling short of where it was supposed to go. Nevertheless, they had plenty of chances to equalise, if not to win. But it was one of those games where nothing at all went right.
I walked back, freezing cold, and I’m tired and ready for bed. And I know that I’ll pay for all of this effort in the morning.
I’ll leave you instead with about 2,000 words and hope that you enjoy it.
