Good news from Aix....

Last tango in Aachen

History does not record whether Charlemagne (aka Karl der Große, Karel de Grote, Carolus magnus rex, et al) was a Hoofer, nor whether he spent his weekends Jack Palancing, but, 1212 years after his death (at the age of 66), his capital city is alive with the shuffle of kicking and prancing.....

As you can see, I am a little clunky....

But after a few partners, I begin to get the hang of it, and almost only one of my feet is left....

But that's a digression.... Here I was in Aachen, whose name, according to Wiki, is a modern descendant, like southern German Ach(e), German: Aach, meaning river or stream, from Old High German ahha, [Pace, Alan Partridge - Ed.] meaning water or stream, which directly translates (and etymologically corresponds) to Latin Aquae, referring to the local mineral springs, which figures in Aachen's Roman name Aquae granni, which meant waters of Grannus, referring to the Celtic god of healing who was worshipped at the springs. This word became Åxhe in Walloon and Aix in French, and subsequently Aix-la-Chapelle to distinguish it from Aix-en-Provence after Charlemagne had his palatine chapel built there in the late 8th century and then made the city his empire's capital.

[So now you know - Ed.]

Robert Browning had a thing or two to say (about this and that....):

How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix

I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;

‘Good speed!’ cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;

‘Speed!’ echoed the wall to us galloping through;

Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,

And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

But, like the decorations in the Palatine Chapel, all this is phoney.  

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace

Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;

I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,

Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,

Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,

Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.....

Robert Browning

He made it all up..... There was no news - there were no riders - and the mosaics and decorations are 19th and early 20th century (the stained glass is post WWII). Pshaw! 

Aachen Cathedral is Germany's first UNESCO World Heritage site and received about 1.25 million visitors in 2025, with over 5,300 guided tours.

And so why the flocking hordes of foreign bodies? Is it the cult of the man?

Or his legacy?

Europe - Cornerstone of Peace

Don't get me started.  As Tony Hancock once said, Did Magna Carta die in vain?

Forgive me whilst I slake my Wurst.....

So.  What is Aachen, and why was I here?

Aachen was Charlemagne's capital and subsequently the coronation site for 30 Holy Roman Emperors.  It is a city with a population of about 250,000 (roughly the same as Southampton or Derby), the 27th largest city in Germany, but it is the westernmost, near the borders with Belgium and the Netherlands.  It was the first city to fall to Western Allies in 1944, but was very badly damaged - though the Cathedral and the Rathaus were not destroyed.

It is a busy, friendly place.  I found that almost everyone spoke better English than me (my Deutsch is dastardly) and the atmosphere was calm and disciplined - for example, everyone waits for the green man when crossing roads, even if there is no traffic at all.....  It is also noticeable that cyclists, perhaps misguidedly eschewing helmets and lycra, adhere religiously to cycle paths instead of careering along footpaths and jumping red lights..... What is wrong with these people?

 

The Sunday morning flea market in the Katschof is a popular teeming event, though I notice a distinct absence of dogs....  Again, what are these people thinking?  

It's the same in restaurants: nowhere are their bowls of water on the floor to trip over, pots of biscuits on the counter, nor paw prints on the seats..... How can folk live like this?

Even outside the restaurants.....  Is there some kind of extreme regulation (draconian law) that has taken over the minds of ordinary citizens?  Is this what the AfD really stands for?

We are, after all, only 61 kms from Cologne, where the Odour is strictly Colonial:

Anyway, you may construdel this in your own way.....

To be honest [?? Ed.] I am here for two things.  One is arrrrt....  And in the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum the only thing that disappoints is that the top floor is currently off limits, so I am deprived of Otto Dix and Max Liebermann et al. But alongside pictures by Cranach, Rembrandt and Zurbarán.... 

There is a wonderful collection of medieval sculpture.....

Most extraordinary, in a way, is that, while the Germans may not be best known for their sense of humour, I cannot help but be arrested by certain works on display in this otherwise sedate (and under-visited) collection. Here is Michael Triegel (born Erfurt, 1968)'s 2008 painting, Verkündigung (Annunciation)....

Perhaps I should not suggest that there is humour here, but then consider this:

The picture on the left, Portrait of a Man, 1660, by Johann Wilhelm Pottgießer:

Is a serious, traditional portrait, whereas the one on the right....

Is a 2024 photo collage, one of a series of Hidden Portraits, in which Volker Hermes (born 1972) reinterprets historical paintings through a modern lens. Using only elements from the original work, Volker visually manipulates famous Old Masters portraits, exploring expression when the face is obscured. The “Hidden Portraits” series examines the context of art as a means of representation and the relationship between image and individual.

Across town, in the Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, light streams in through the windows of what was once an umbrella factory, built in 1928:

It is a marvellous space, and it houses a collection of some 3,000 artworks from the last sixty years or so, including pieces by Jeff Koons:

Jean-Michel Basquiat

And Andy Warhol and Duane Hanson:

But for me a second major attraction to Aachen lies within the Carolus Thermen complex:

Where you can swim in warm mineral waters, or relax in any of fifteen saunas and steam baths, literally stripping away all the trappings of daily life, enjoying the well-being of typical German nudity.... [No photos please....Ed.]

And then, suitably purified, I walk back through the Stadtgarten,

Sprinkle myself with Cologne:

And get back on the dance floor in the Neo-classical Elisenbrunnen pavilion (originally built in 1827 but reconstructed after WWII) where I now feel completely at home.....

There is no doubt, this is a civilised and attractive place, and I have barely scratched the surface in my furtive weekend.

The news is good here, and I shall, quite possibly, be back....

How I Brought the Good News from Aix to Ghent (or Vice Versa)

I sprang to the rollocks and Jorrocks and me,

And I galloped, you galloped, he galloped, we galloped all three…

Not a word to each other; we kept changing place,

Neck to neck, back to front, ear to ear, face to face;

And we yelled once or twice, when we heard a clock chime,

“Would you kindly oblige us, Is that the right time?”

As I galloped, you galloped, he galloped, we galloped, ye galloped, they two shall have galloped; let us trot......

ENVOI

So I sprang to a taxi and shouted “To Aix!”

And he blew on his horn and he threw off his brakes,

And all the way back till my money was spent

We rattled and rattled and rattled and rattled and rattled

And rattled and rattled—

And eventually sent a telegram.

W C Sellar and R J Yeatman

All we need is music, sweet music (sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet music)

There'll be music everywhere (everywhere)

There'll be swinging, swaying (swaying)

And records playing (playing)

Dancing in the street, oh

Marvin Gaye, William Stevenson 

and Ivy Jo Hunter

Dancing in the Street

Bach to the Future

Three Beers for Bach!*

 

If I said this was all about Bach – I would be lying.  And if I said this was all about beer – I would also be lying.  And, in this day and age, who would want to be a liar?  I just cannot imagine why anyone would want to tell untruths.  Little, white, lies – maybe.  But wholly untruthful statements?  There just is no place for such in public life......

 

Anyway, I won’t lie to you.  I have just got back from Germany, and one of the reasons that I made this perilous journey, tunnelling 75 metres under La Manche (or, to give it is proper title, The European Channel) at nearly 300 kilometres per hour, was to celebrate the tercentenary of Johann Sebastian Bach’s move to Leipzig, a small town in (East) Germany.

 

I will also let you into a small truth.  I like beer.  (And wine, I might add, and other drinks, and food – but they are, perhaps, other stories.....)

 

And, in some ways, Beer and Bach go well together. For example, though precious little is known about Bach’s personal life (apart, perhaps, from the lives and deaths of his twenty children) it is recorded that when he moved to Weimar, in July 1708, he was to receive 150 florins in cash, eighteen bushels of grain (presumably for bread), twelve bushels of barley (presumably for beer), four cords of wood (to cook and make beer with as well as to keep warm) and thirty pails of beer (to be going on with.....). 

[Incidentally, to put this into some kind of historical perspective, this was the same year that the Jesuits were expelled from Holland and Charles XII invaded Ukraine....]

 

But I digress.  I have in my hand a piece of paper, a letter from Emily Potzger (Incoming) who represents the Leipzig Tourismus and Marketing GmbH.  Dear Mr Gibbs, she writes, It is a pleasure to welcome you to Leipzig – the city about which Gotthold Ephraim Lessing said: “I come to Leipzig, to a place where one can see the whole world in miniature.”  

[I should probably explain that Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, (born Jan. 22, 1729, Kamenz, Upper Lusatia, Saxony [Germany]—died Feb. 15, 1781, Braunschweig, Brunswick [Germany]), was a German dramatist, critic, and writer on philosophy and aesthetics.  Which, I guess, explains a lot.....]

 

Dear Mr Gibbs, she concludes, we wish you wonderful and eventful days in Leipzig.....

 

Who could resist such openness and charm?  

 

But (and, as you would expect, there is often a but) this was the focus of my visit, something that I had wished for for many years (probably since visiting Eisenach, Bach’s birthplace, and Weimar some years ago) but which had been rendered impractical by the pandemic (among other minor inconveniences.....). So it wasn’t just to Lovely Leipzig that I lurched.  No. First I yearned to have a look at Lorsch.

 

Aha!  (You cry.) Und was ist das? Well, I am surprised you are not better informed, as the World Heritage Site Lorsch Abbey is property of the Verwaltung der Staatlichen Schlösser un Gärten Hessen.  Founded in 764, built on an ice-age sand dune, and consecrated in 774 in the presence of King Charlemagne, this is a site worth a detour (though, as the trains from Bensheim weren’t running, a charabanc was needed for the second leg, even though the bus driver, a person not exactly born in Germany, did not speak German – nor English.... Ho hum.) And the Karolingerstadt (Carolingian Town – keep up) is pretty cute too, with its ancient, half-timbered houses and historic town hall, not to mention its Museum of Tobacco Production and the Culture of Smoking (tobacco used to be the main crop here).  It’s a far cry from North Norfolk, and a beer and a sausage salad in the market square rounded off a fine day out in the sun.

 

I was staying in Darmstadt, which can be explained by my unredacted WhatsApp messages, should this be necessary. Darmstadt holds the official title City of Science (German: Wissenschaftsstadt) which is about as meaningful as City of Culture.....  {Darmstadtium is a chemical element with the symbol Ds and atomic number 110. It is an extremely radioactive synthetic element. The most stable known isotope, darmstadtium-281, has a half-life of approximately 12.7 seconds. Darmstadtium was first created in 1994 by the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in the city of Darmstadt, Germany, after which it was named.}  

You get my drift?  

 

Anyway, Darmstadt is also blessed with the Waldspirale (Forest Spiral) built in the late 1990s, a residential complex by Austrian Friedensreich Hundertwasser. As an almost surreal building, bearing a resemblance to the work of Antoni Gaudí, it is internationally famous for its almost absolute rejection of rectangular forms, down to every window having a different shape. (It also absolutely rejects the possibility of photographing it, but more of Hundertwasser later.....). 

So this is a photograph of something else.....

 

Not content with such fame, Darmstadt also hosts the UNESCO World Heritage Site Mathildenhöhe, with the Hochzeitsturm (Wedding tower) by Joseph Maria Olbrich, and a Russian Chapel built by Jugendstil architects who had settled in Darmstadt (German Art Nouveau is commonly known by its German name, Jugendstil. The name is taken from the artistic journal, Die Jugend, which was published in Munich and which espoused the new artistic movement.)

 

All this culture aside, the centre of Darmstadt, the Marktplatz, is home to the Darmstädter Ratskeller Hausbrauerei, a craft brewery located in the Old City Hall, which was built in 1598.  Here 0.4 litres of Ratsbräu Premium hell (nach Pilsner Art) will cost you €4,10, and to clothe such excess you could have a pair of fried sausages with bread for €8.90.....

 

Aaaacchhh.....

Sooo.....

And so to Fulda.

 

Which a man who says he has ridden from the German Sea (AKA The North Sea) on a Vespa claims is the Bees Knees – a phrase I think may be missing an R and a D?

 

But I will spare you the continuation, for the moment.  

Ernulf is Ernulf, and should you wish to follow my trail of confusion, then the next episode will thrill you with its mix of Baroque and Roll, and we shall approach the Bachanalian excitement of Leaping Leipzig...... 

*****

* In case you were wondering, this article is approximately 1,000 words, which is pretty much the same as what Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson will spew out on a weekly basis for the Maily Dail for a piffling £1m p.a.

Chicken Feed! 

 

 

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