Tweet18-06-2010 om 12:12 by Sueli Brodin

A few months ago, my friends Jacqueline and Govert visited Beethoven’s birth house in Bonn and recommended it to me as a very enjoyable and enriching destination for a day trip from Maastricht.

Bonn, the former federal capital of Germany until 1999, is only 126 km away and can be reached in a little over an hour by car, but when we decided to go there last weekend, we thought that it might also be a good idea to stay over for the night and spend more time in the area.



We found a spacious one-room studio at a Bed and Breakfast in the small town of Sinzig in the Rhine valley, 25 km to the south of Bonn. When we arrived there, we were immediately conquered by the beautifully green and peaceful surroundings.









We drove to Bonn in the early afternoon, left our car in an underground garage near the train station and made our way to Beethoven’s birth house through the pleasant pedestrian city centre.



Ludwig van Beethoven was born in the attic room of this yellow house in December 1770. The house has now been converted into a museum and contains an important collection of paintings, sculptures, written documents, music instruments, and other objects commemorating the composer’s life. The audio guide and booklet, available in various languages, were very informative and we were free to visit the building at our own pace, but not allowed to take any photographs except in the courtyard. Among the objects that struck me the most were some of the original violins once played by Beethoven, the ear trumpets that he had himself made when he started becoming deaf and the “conversation books” that he used to communicate when nothing else helped anymore.





Bonn celebrates its prodigal son in many ways throughout the city. Ludwig van Beethoven’s name even appears in restaurant menu cards and T-shirts, and the slogan of the tourist information office: “Freude, Joy, Joie” is of course inspired by Ode to Joy, the final movement of the composer’s 9^th and last symphony.



Back in Sinzig, we took a long stroll through the fields on the hill over the house. The evening light was beautiful and everything was quiet and serene.



Our host Margareth, originally from Australia, and her German husband welcomed us in their house the next morning with a delicious breakfast: orange juice, coffee, fresh bread buns, yoghurt, hard boiled eggs, cheese, meat, honey and homemade jam. Margareth’s husband gave us some tips for the day: “You must go and see the Deutsches Eck in Koblenz, the place where the Mosel meets the Rhine, and a little further to the south, Marksburg Castle in the town of Braubach is another spectacular spot not to be missed!”



The medieval town of Braubach with its half-timbered houses was indeed very picturesque and we enjoyed the walk through the rocky woods up to Marksburg Castle.







It was a sunny day and we had a beautiful view on the Rhine from the top of the hill, but when we entered the castle, we found ourselves surrounded by several bus loads of tourists, mostly groups of elderly Germans, and discovered that the only option to visit it was either to join a 50 minute long guided tour in German or wait for the next tour in English. We didn’t think our children would enjoy this very much so we decided to drive back towards Koblenz and the Deutsches Eck.

The Deutsches Eck turned out to be a very touristic spot as well with hundreds of visitors around. We figured that it would be a better idea to come back another time, perhaps on a week day later in the year.

When I had studied the map of the region near Sinzig a few days before, I had noticed a large lake called Laacher See, which was described in my guide as a volcanic crater lake. It looked intriguing, especially since the guide mentioned that the volcano was still active and could still erupt at any moment. Our Bed and Breakfast hosts had added that morning that there were spots in the lake where water could be seen bubbling up and that several WWII planes had been fished out from the lake.



When we arrived at the Laacher See however, the crowded parking lot had an adverse effect on us. We only took a brief look around but didn’t stay.





According to my guide, there were several picturesque medieval towns and villages in the surrounding Eifel region and the roads leading to them were marked on the map as particularly scenic. The fortified town of Bad Münstereifel seemed like a good place to go next and we enjoyed the route along steep sunny hillsides covered with intricately terraced vineyards that took us there.



Bad Münstereifel, with its castle ruins and slate-roofed timber-framed houses, enchanted us. Although it was Sunday afternoon, all the shops seemed to be open and there was a pleasant animation in the colourful pedestrian streets. People were having coffee and cakes or ice-creams on the many terraces lining the little river that ran through the town.



We walked up to the well preserved walls encircling the town and enjoyed a beautiful view of the surroundings.





And we ended our day in the Eifel with a tasty German meal of "Pommes Frites, Salat, Schnitzels und Bradwurst".

In the car on our way back home, my daughter Sacha asked: “When are we going back to Germany? Ein zwei drei!”

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