Saturday was the annual Rhine in Flames festival along part of the Rhein, with one part starting in Linz and ending in Bonn. The best way to describe it is a mini festival, with a couple of stages with mainly local bands playing, beer stands, a fairground, then a huge and very impressive firework display at the end.

Not really sure of the idea behind it. You can take boat trips from where the event starts and then travel down the river watching all of the firework displays (each of 5 or 6 towns along the river have their own). Its held in a big park on the river in Bonn, and the atmosphere is fantastic, although it is very popular and the great weather meant that it was packed. There are also similar events later on in the year further up the river.

I cant find a decent link to any info about it, apart from the german Wikipedia article Here

Then yesterday i spent the whole day in Bonn. ive been living in Cologne for over 6 months and it was the first time ive been during the day. its only 20 minutes by train, but never had the chance to visit.

But its a really nice city. it quite small, a population of maybe 300,000, but still a lot to do. It was the capital of West Germany from 1949-1990, i presume because its non-industrial past meant it avioded significant damage during the war. So unlike most German cities, its hasnt been completely rebuilt in the last 50 years and has a bit more character.

Bonn is the birthplace of Beethoven, so the house where he was born has been converted into a museum of his life and work.

There is also a really good Museum of Contemporary German History, which is an interesting look at German history from 1945. Its free entry, and i think everything is in English as well, or at least you can get an English guide book.

I will try and post a few pictures later when i get home from work

Just thought i would try point out that theres more to Germany than just Berlin and Oktoberfest in Munich!

Hear, hear. Quite a bit more, in fact. Yesterday was the Formula 1 race at Nurburgring, and soon it'll be time for "Rock am Ring", kind of a Lollapalooza event, with a vast array of music. All you Depeche Mode fans (I know there's a couple at least) can party with the Metallica fans and Franz Ferdinand types, it sounds like quite a blow out event. Apparently (our landlord works for Bitburger beer, and gets cheap tix and knows a lot of the details), there's nothing around the racetrack, so about 200,000 people just camp out in the woods for the four days. He also mentioned that from the neighbouring villages, you can hear the concert loud and clear (though maybe at a more sedate level) so we talked about driving up one night, eating dinner on the terrace and catching a bit of the show free. With 200,000 people, it's not like we'd see anything, anyway!

The Rheinland in the spring: unless you suffer from allergies, it's hard to beat!

:tumbleweed:

Tell me about it! i never suffer from hayfever, but yesterday i couldnt stop sneezing all day.

I has my window wide open at work on friday, i got back after my lunch and couldnt see the screen of my computer there was so much pollen covering it! and this is in the centre of Cologne, i cant imagine how bad it must be out of the big cities!

Oh, it's pretty bad! I hang my laundry out to dry, and I shook it out inside to fold it, now there's a layer of yellow grit all over the living room. And today I washed my windshield which was covered in the fine particles - five minutes later, it was just as bad... Oh well, the wild cherry trees on the hill across from my computer are in bloom, the kids bring me fresh wildflower bouquets every day, and I can go out barefoot and smell my tulips and daffodils, and not freeze to death...I'll take this any time...(I had to pause to sneeze!)

:tumbleweed:

so there some photos up on my msn space here

they arent that many, its took me a while to set up the msn space thing. i couldnt find a way to change the language so had to struggle through the german version!

RhineLand in Spring: a stuffy nose from allergies means you won't smell the fertilizer.

Excellent point.

:tumbleweed: