Once capital, and still a beautiful town
Many Germans still are longing for the capital of their youth, as much as for the German Mark. In Germany not everybody is happy with the new capital Berlin, and maybe those opposing Berlin might have a point in their favour: whenever Berlin was Germany’s capital, Germany started a war.
Contrary to Berlin Bonn was the capital of a very peaceful Germany, and people who grew up in the 60s, 70s and even the 80s will think of full employment, the economic miracle and pre-petrol-crisis-times. Quite a few topics which sadly have become past...
But Bonn, a metropolis with nearly 310,000 inhabitants at the banks of river Rhine and located right in the middle of the metropolitan region Cologne-Bonn and boasting of an airport bearing the same name is important in its own right, not only as a former capital. Bonn is older than 2,000 years and one of the oldest towns of Germany.
On the place of even older German settlements as early as in the year 12 AD a Roman garrison was founded. Later on this garrison became the centre of a Legion, followed by the usual civil settlement, a vicus. With the decline of Rome the decline of Bonn followed, and was only stopped in the 9th and 10th centuries, when the Bonn Munster (monastery) was founded and attained an important role in the region. Bonn was given official town rights in 1243.
1949 Bonn became the capital of the Federal Republic of Germany and stayed its seat of government until the Bonn/Berlin Decision of the Federal Parliament, the Bundestag, but even though Bundestag and the seat of government where moved to Berlin in 1999 and 2000, Bonn still is the second official seat of the Federal President, the Chancellor and the Bundesrat, as well as official first seat of six of the federal ministries. By conserving these privileges for Bonn, the government tried to avoid a devastating loss of employment for the many federal clerks and officers in Bonn, which would have had a crippling effect on local economy.
Even though “political tourism” has decreased considerably after Bonn has lost its role as capital, Bonn was successful in developing congress tourism, favoured not only by the nearby airport Cologne-Bonn, but also by its nice location at the banks of the Rhine river and in the near vicinity of the recreational hill-region Siebengebirge. Thus Bonn even way back in 2005 succeeded in generating 1.16 millions of hotel stays, a quarter of which stemmed from tourist attaining congresses in town.
On the other hand Bonn offers visitors quite a lot of attractions. A nice example of the Rococo style of architecture is the Old Town Hall (Altes Rathaus), and close to it you will find the Main Residence of the Prince Electorate of Cologne (Hauptresidenz des Kölner Kurfürsten) which is used as the main building of the Bonn University in our time. At the Poppelsdorfer Allee you will find the Poppelsdorf Palace (Poppelsdorfer Schloss) which was built in the first half of the 18th century.
One of the landmarks of Bonn is the Bonn Munster (Bonner Münster), a monastery. Also worth seeing are the churches Remigius-Kirche, Namen-Jesu-Kirche and Kreuzberg-Kirche. Fans of classical music might want to notice that Ludwig van Beethoven was baptised in the Remigius-Kirche, being born in Bonn.
Photo: Tobias Arhelge/Shutterstock
Impressing is also the Castle Godesburg, the oldest parts of which stem from the times of the Franks. Maybe Bonn´s quarter Bad Godesberg is named after this castle. Close to the banks of the river Rhine you will find the Old Custom House (Alter Zoll) and the Sterntor, a gate of the walls of Bonn.
Fans of Germany will find one of the many museums of Bonn most interesting: The House of History (of the Federal Republic of Germany, Haus der Geschichte). It ranks as number ten amongst the most visited museums all over Germany. People who like to visit places “where history was made” should not miss to take a look at Villa Hammerschmidt and Palais Schaumburg, two of the representative buildings used by the German government in Bonn. They are open for the public. Also the Beethoven-Haus, managed as a museum, will be worth visiting.
More information: http://www.bonn.de/index.html?lang=en
Photo: Hans Weingartz, CC-BY-SA-2.0-de
