This past week I was in Aachen
for work. Luckily for me, one of my good friends and colleagues is from Aachen,
and kindly took us on a tour of the city. While I didn’t get to see it this
trip, not far from it is a 3-country point with the Netherlands, Germany, and
Belgium meeting together.
Aachen was an important city as
it was the home of Charlemagne (if you forgot who he was, he united/ruled
Western Europe, so he’s called the “Father of Europe” and many royal families
in Europe trace their ancestry back to him). All along walking, we saw
the signet seal of Charlemagne on the ground. If you look closely, there is a
discreet "y" in the middle- this was to be able to detect forgeries!
It was also an important political city, where many Holy Roman Emperors were
crowned wayyyyy back in the day. Aachen was heavily bombed during World War 2,
as is evidenced by a lot of newer architecture.
There are two main buildings in
the city center: one is the town hall, an absolutely magnificent building, and
the other was the cathedral, a sprawling architectural wonder. Charlemagne
ordered the building of the cathedral, and is buried there. Legend has it
that the city ran out of money to build the cathedral, so the locals made a
deal with the devil to finance it. His deal was that he required the first soul
to enter the finished building. The townspeople promptly sent a wolf into the
church at it’s completion, thus gaining the main door the name “Wolf Gate”. The
devil, obvi furious, then came to visit carrying a giant sack of dirt to
destroy the city. Near the town center, he ran into a peasant woman with worn
out shoes and asked for directions. Our brilliant lady, on recognizing the
devil, promptly told him that her shoes were brand new when she left Aachen.
The enraged devil just threw his sack of dirt and voila- the local mountain was
created.
My favorite statue in Aachen was
the Three Ladies. There are three 10ft women, holding umbrellas. Women in
Aachen carried umbrellas to protect from the falling debris during WWII, and
the statues are a nod to their fortitude and resilience.
A short walk from the city
center, we arrived at the Elisenbrunnen. There are natural sulphur hot springs
in Aachen, and it was a well known Roman bath town. There was a beautiful
structure with a few fountains along the wall (we didn’t venture to the bathhouses).
Shortly after entering, the sulphur smell hit HARD. However, I adjusted
after a few minutes, and it was crazy how warm the water coming was! While our
wonderful unofficial guide told us many drink the water, I happily declined to
do so. Close by, there were also ruins from the Romans. After this
wonderful historical tour, most of the over 32 crowd in our party decided to
head to bed, so our party of 4 pushed on.
Being in Germany, naturally we
had to have a beer... our host took us to Dom Keller, an ancient German pub. As
I detest most beers, it was recommended that I have a "kolsch".
Kolsch beer originates from brewing methods in Cologne, and is closer to a
cider. At our second pub (another ancient place), I opted for a lovely smokey
Laphroaig scotch instead. My German colleagues had a Belgian beer - the
cool thing was the glasses in which it was served. They had a rounded
bottom, and there isn't a flat part to put on the table! You have to put the
glass back into the provided wooden stand.
And once again we dropped
another member, and so I headed with two of my favorites to our (thankfully!)
final stop of the night. One more kolsch later, and 2 rounds of darts (one of
which I won, two of which I dominated), we found our way to the hotel at the
reasonable hour of 1AM.
Grateful for this wonderful
time with the most incredible colleagues in this historic town.
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