Bonn and surroundings

We’ve been worked pretty hard at my conference in Germany, but this afternoon we got a break and went on an excursion up the Rhine to the Siebengebirge area (‘seven’ apparently means many—there are over forty). Here are a few pictures that I snagged along the way when I wasn’t too busy doing something else like looking at the cute Black-headed Gulls.

We went in a ship named Moby Dick. It has a tail in the back. But it’s blue. (My advisor, incidentally, is standing in the door looking back.

The bit of the Siebengebirge to which we’re headed (the hill on the right is Drachenfels, which is where Siegfried of Nibelungenlied fame supposedly killed a dragon):

A hotel along the way. Hitler apparently met here with his generals and decided to blow up the only bridge in the area to hinder the advance of the Allies. Hence, ferry is now the only way to get across the Rhine around here:

Getting closer to Drachenfels:

From the top of Drachenfels, looking further up the Rhine:

Thanks to the efforts of other people, there is even a photo with me in it (along with many of the other participants in the conference):

We were told that the ruins at the top of Drachenfels were from a castle built in the 12th century. It turns out that it is an unfinished 21st-century castle, as this picture proves:

A view on the way back down:

One of the interesting attributes of Bonn is the local belief that the French language is a marketing gift to the people of Bonn: ‘bonnjour’ and so forth. The latest manifestation were the menus at the restaurant where we had dinner: ‘bonn appetit!’ And this was at a classy, upscale restaurant near the university.

Sydney