Bonn

The art of remembering

28.05.2010 - 30.05.2010 17 °C

A good friend invited me back to Bonn, just for a few days. I take the train from The Hague Central Station - it's only a four-hour journey. Relaxing in the ICE is so much more comfortable than the hassle of airports. Although it's a large and heavy book, I want to finish David van Reybrouck's Congo, een geschiedenis (De Bezige Bij, 2010) and take it with me on the train. The book offers a detailed history of Congo, and as a Flemish author, Van Reybrouck carefully weaves his own Belgian perspective into the troubled past, present anf future of that country. I hope it will be translated into other languages soon.

Van Reybrouck: Congo

I give a lecture and seminar at Bonn University, and have sufficient time to see the city. I have been in Bonn several times, but hardly had time as a tourist. I decide to visit the Museumsmeile, which offers a wide choice of museums all within the stretch of a mile or so. I'm particularly struck by the Haus der Geschichte der BRD, a musuem which seems mostly visited by loud schoolchildren, all literally walking through the history of their own country. The museum offers a visual spectacle of the history of Germany from the end of World War II till today. I also visit the exibition Wir gegen uns ("We against ourselves"), which offers a nice account of the confrontations between the BRD and DDR on the pitch (soccer, ski jumping, athletics, etc.)

Museumsmeile, Bonn

Wir gegen uns

It's clear that in our visual age this is the way to both entertain and educate kids, and I like it as well ...! I have been in East-Germany several times, and the strange antics of the Cold War comes alive again before my eyes. It's all very well done. I remember that the European Union wants to do something similar for the history of Europe. Also with the same objective: visualize the history and identity of Europe for young people. I'm sure they'll come to Bonn to see what the possibilities are!

Bonn is a very layed-back, provincial city, with a lot of students, bicycles, parks, and references to Beethoven (its best-known citizen). It thrives on the many huge international conferences whiich are held as a kind of compensation a decade ago when the German federal ministries were relocated to Berlin. Hotels are usually fully booked as a result, and the city has nicer restaurants than you would expect for its modest size. Anyway, I offer a few snapshots of the city, to show how it looks like.

Monument

Grafitti

Want some coffee ...?

Or a book ...?

To close, this is a picture of the Cologne railway station, where I made a stop-over. I especially liked the huge glass ad for 4711 cologne. I just wonder whether they have to pay for it? It seems to have been there forever, and turned itself into an integral part of the architecture.

Cologne and Koeln