Bonn-Voyage: Part 1

4th March, 2011, Friday

Having learnt that it was a holiday on Monday on the occasion of RosenMontag, we began breaking our head in deciding how to spend the long weekend :) Paris? Duisburg? Heidelberg? Stuttgart? Berlin? Where?? How?? Ufff.. A breeze of thoughts gushing through our mind.. Chaotic situation within our head!! 

Then we somehow decided and said Bonn!!

5th March, 2011, Saturday

It was a chilly day as we headed out towards Bonn. The roads were scantily filled with vehicles and lined with beautiful scenery alongside!! Though brown , the tall bald trees glamorized the landscape with their contrasting effect with the gray-blue sky. It looked just the way I had always loved it.. Spectacular!!

After an amazing drive along the lonely roads, we reached the main station of Bonn where we were told, we would get ample information about the touring in Bonn. 

Pleasantly, a lady at the info desk welcomed us and provided us with all the maps, guides and hand outs which described every single detail required for us to choose from the vast list of activities. The list had about 45 "must see" museums and galleries in it. We were flabbergasted!

Anyways, we picked a few unique-to-its-kind type of places that matched our interest. So thus began our "Bonn Voyage" :)

Beethovan Statue

1. Beethoven house: The birth place of Ludwig van Beethovan. There is a history behind this house. It is said that the government was about to demolish this building since it was old and in its place they wanted to erect some other building. A group of Beethoven followers and admirers fought together to retain this house. Their struggle paid results. The house was retained :) And they restored it and made it a monumental structure. It is this group which later formed a committee and till this day, the committee maintains the Beethovan House
A tour through the 12 room house offered us a deeper insight into the life and works of the great composer.  The most catchy of the several exhibits were the life & death masks of Beethovan. The last of the pianos used by him is also on the display.  The entire house is an illustration of his life , the people in his life, his possesions like the grand piano, violin, his ear trumpets, his glasses, his birth room.. It was a touchy feeling as we toured the homeof such a legend!! Indeed, this is a must see place in Bonn.

Egyptian Museum

2. Egyptian Museum: This is the museum which has its history dated back to the 19th century. We were told that the exhibits are just a part of the collection that they had before the world war. Most of the collection got destroyed during the bombing in the world war. What remained has been carefully preserved here. The museum is part of the University of Bonn. It has a plethora of exhibits : the pottery, the metallic ornaments, tools, idols, temple architecture, the mummies, the wall sketches of animals and many more things!!

(Egyptican Museum, Bonn )

 
3.Arithmeum: I have always found Arithmetic to be fun!! What more could a person like me want!! I found this place fascinating with all its uniquely distinguishable exhibits of the various machines of calculations!!

From the abacus to the modern day computers and mainframes, everything is on the display here. Some of the exhibits even provide us with a chance of a hands-on  experience with most of the ancient calculating machines.

This was a very neatly planned and laid out exhibition with different floors depicting machines of different times..It was a four floored building which took my breath away :) I was just thrilled. At times, my dear hubby mocked at my indulgence into those objects :)

(Arithmeum, Bonn )

4. Art and exhibits Museum, Federal republic of Germany: A pleasant surprise to us was the exhibition about "Napolean & Europe- A dream & Trauma". Amongst the several beautiful displays, I loved the painting of Napolean on his horse. The painting, in my interpretation, was a manifestation of the power, the strength, the victory and the confidence of Napolean in his conquests. While making our plan, we thought this would merely be another art exhibit and had plans of dropping it. But later we realized what we would have missed, had we knocked this off our tour plan.

(Art Exbition, Bonn )

Russian Ballet

5.Kunstmuseum: The art museum in Bonn. For people like me who have keen interest in paintings, sketches & art in general, this is like The-Place-To-Go!! It has art forms dating back to the medieval times. Famous among the exhibits here is that of August Macke. Several other beautiful paintings were on display. We clicked a few inspiring pictures, hoping to try my skills in creating replicas of those :) 

(KunstMuseum, Bonn)

Oh what a day it was!! So much to see!! I kept on appreciating everything I saw as we drove towards our hotel. The hotel we had selected was on the outskirts of the city in a silent area, far away from the madding crowd..




Continued...