Bonn is a fairly small city at the bottom of the big trail of places running down the Rhine Valley. This doesn’t mean you should miss it as the people are wonderful and it does have some good sights. Oh, and Beethoven was born here though he hated the place by all accounts.

When I first arrived, my host (Elise) met me and took my bags back to her place so I could explore for a while before meeting her and some other Couchsurfers for dinner and a few drinks. I took to wandering around and saw the Museumsmile, some nice cathedrals and some shops. The architecture around the museums and galleries is interesting and maybe not to everyone’s taste but at least it grabs the attention. A shame the same can’t be said for the sterile, boring, concrete blocks that are being erected on the other side of the same road.

Some buildings have a tourist board outside in German and English with some historical details, accompanied by photographs of how it used to look. Interesting and I believe they form part of a trail that can be followed.

One of the galleries has a roof garden that would be a wonderful place for lunch as well as the cleanest toilets I think I’ve ever seen. I didn’t bother to look elsewhere inside – I’m not an “art” person.

After wandering all the way into the south of town I caught a tube back up to the north and met Elise. We headed for a local bar where, over the course of an hour, about 16 people joined us for beers and conversation. Many were couchsurfers, others were students from the area – and I had a great time. After 2 hours I was ordering two beers at a time as the Germans insist on using tiddly little 0.20cl glasses which are just too small!

As the bar closed, we got our bill and people tried to work out how many they’d had. I was last and I had completely lost count/ I guessed at “ten?” to the barmaid and she shrugged, nodded OK and charged me for about half the beer I’d consumed.

From there we walked to a club for another couple of beers after which I crashed at Christoph’s/ – Elise had had to go home earlier. Thank you for the emergency couch, fella!

In the morning, I caught up with Elise who showed me some of the sights in Bonn including Beethoven’s birthplace – which is rather un-awe-inspiring. And easily spotted by the crowd of Japanese photographers burning through memory cards taking pictures of it.

There are some nice building up in the northern end, inclduing an enormous well-crafted university hall. After she’d shown me round them and we’d had pastries from a shop for brunch. we headed back to her’s where I gathered my gear and headed off for Cologne.