The Saturday morning walk to the museum mile took us along the River Rhine, giving some views along the river and the nearby hills. It didn’t feel like a massively built-up area, indeed it was all rather peaceful. A couple of river cruisers went by on the water, that must be quite a pleasant way to spend a few days.
I think it’s fair to say that this was the best craft beer pub of the weekend, a clearly on-trend bar which is linked to the Brau Hotel in Bonn.
There’s a list above the bar with a range of beer styles, always a very positive thing to see when entering licensed premises.
And a long printed bottle list, of which just a part is in the above photos. Unlike some pubs I can think of in the UK, namely the Artichoke, they actually seemed to have everything that was on the printed lists
Here’s the craft beer pro placing the orders… There’s a slightly unusual set-up where the bar staff take the order at a counter and collect payment, but the drinks are brought out to the table by another staff member. A little like the Wetherspoons App. But without the ordering via the App. So not really like the App at all, bar the delivery to the table. The system isn’t infallible though, the staff did make some errors in bringing drinks to the wrong tables, but it all worked itself out in the end.
A picture on the bar’s wall….
Nicely decorated steps.
The Lollypalooza from Beavertown Brewery. This wasn’t distinctive enough for Nathan, who wanted something like a regional beer which had been crafted by elderly monks in a monastery near to Bonn for the local experience. But a hit of raspberry ice lolly flavoured beer was too much for me to resist.
The Badger Porter from Seven Mountains, back to the more usual dark beers that I prefer. And very lovely, a depth of flavour and a smooth taste to it. The Seven Mountains brewery is located in Königswinter and was founded in 2017, now looking to be growing a little in size from their previous front room style of operation and beer production.
The Roundhouse Kick from Crew Republic, chocolate and coffee flavours to this, a decent beer and how overly rich, so easily drinkable.
The Negen & Een from Brouerij de Molen. I liked this one as there were tastes and flavours which were a little difficult to identify, but varied between demerara sugar, biscuit, chocolate, coffee and all manner of other things that I was probably making up in my mind. Certainly a drink to savour as the flavour was rich and a little intense. Very lovely though.
Insanely, this is rated nearly bottom of locations in the city on TripAdvisor, primarily as they only have one review and that’s quite recent. It’s written by a German, who has rated the bar as three out of five, noting:
“What I do not like so much is that it tries a bit cloned image of English micropubs”
It isn’t really much like an English micropub, since it stretches out onto two floors and isn’t very micro, although I admit that there are some similarities in terms of the design style. The reviewer complains about the beer choices, but they seemed entirely adequate to me and I’m sure was pretty much the best available in Bonn. The bar is perhaps a little hard done by on TripAdvisor, showing just how unreliable that site can be.
The bar doesn’t attempt to offer food, with the exception of nachos, which is positive given that it prevents the offer becoming too difficult to sustain. Numerous customers ordered those nachos during the evening, it seemed a well thought through compromise of having something available, but without overdoing it.
The bar was busy throughout the evening, but it was clean, organised and there was a relaxed atmosphere about the location. Bonn doesn’t have a huge number of craft beer options, so we remained here for some time instead of hopping from pub to pub. All rather civilised….
In exactly the same way as we ignored the Christmas markets of Luxembourg, we ignored the Christmas markets of Bonn. But, since we accidentally walked through them, I took some photos to share the joy.
And, some from the morning after….
That’s, once again, enough Christmas for the moment.
Unfortunately, this shop was closed during the time that we were in Bonn. But it’s the first Haribo shop in the world, two floors of sweet related goodness. Haribo was founded in the city in 1920, so we may have to come back next year to help them celebrate their one hundredth anniversary.
Since on this occasion we couldn’t visit, since it was shut, I’ll have to content myself to seeing what I could have won…..
“On a sales area of around 350 square meters, the entire HARIBO range, including the MAOAM brand, is offered on the ground floor. One highlight is definitely the big candy bar, where you can put together individual product mixtures yourself. The selection of international confectionery of our house is a real eye-catcher. In addition, HARIBO’s entire success story, including interesting facts and figures, can be traced on a historical wall on the lower floor.
On the first floor you will find a selection of likeable merchandise for small and large HARIBO fans. Starting with HARIBO pens, HARIBO towels and bed linen to fluffy plush gold bears, there’s something here for everyone!”
How very lovely.
At the moment there are some bus replacements operating on this service, so many journeys aren’t as complex as the one which we had to get from Luxembourg to Bonn.
The train tickets were Sparpreis, cheaper advance saver tickets. The German pricing structure for rail tickets is complex and there are all manner of quirks, expensive prices and discounts available, but the Sparpreis tickets from Luxembourg to Bonn were under €40 each return.
Our connections were:
13:33 – 14:56 Luxembourg to Wittlich
15:06 – 16:31 Wittlich to Koblenz
17:13 – 17:44 Koblenz to Bonn
This sounds relatively complex, although the journey back was worse, but more about that later on…..
Some trains in Luxembourg railway station, I always like the look of these TGV trains. Not that we were getting them, they were a bit expensive compared to our complex routings with Deutsche Bahn….
The first train was operated by CFL (the Luxembourg rail company) and the second and third trains by Deutsche Bahn.
It was a double decker train (Dylan would have liked that….) and was sufficiently spacious and had power points, although no wi-fi. It was on this journey which crossed from Luxembourg into Germany that I discovered that for some reason my phone didn’t want to connect to Vodafone Deutschland.
Nathan’s adapter, the clunky looking thing at the back, for his Nokia 3310 seemed to take up about two feet of space……
The bus section of the trip was relatively eventful as there was some shouty man on board who seemed to want to cause a disturbance. A member of rail staff who was travelling with the coach did stand up and shout back at the man, which was all rather exciting. I like a bit of drama on my bus replacement services. Although I needed drama since I didn’t have any Internet connection, which was proving to be quite a challenge for me.
Disembarking from the bus.
It’s not very clear from the photo, but the police met the shouty man at Koblenz to ask him some questions….
Koblenz railway station. The city is of relevance to Norwich, as the two are twinned. Not wishing to score cheap points, but Norwich’s railway station is significantly better in terms of facilities and staffing. Although it doesn’t have a McDonald’s, so I think I prefer Koblenz. Or at least I do until Norwich railway station gets a Greggs.
After a quick trip to McDonald’s, it was time to get the last section of the trip from Koblenz to Bonn. Facilities at the railway were limited and the toilets were chargeable.
The delights of Koblenz railway station platforms.
These boards were of limited use, as our train details fell off the screen after its expected departure time had passed. There was information in the app, but it was total nonsense, at one stage telling us to change to platform 5, and then a few minutes later stating it was platform 3. Deutsche Bahn, if I’m being honest, have a shocking lack of customer service staff and it’s noticeable from being used to UK stations how poorly they handle customer issues. There was no-one to ask, but to cut a long story short, our train came in around 45 minutes late.
On the bright side, and as can be seen from the above photo, all the freight trains that came rushing by didn’t seem to have been impeded. And, it was extra excitement for waiting passengers who thought that the arriving train might actually be a passenger train to get them to their destination.
Eventually our train to Bonn arrived and it was relatively quiet, so it was easy to get a seat. Certainly Deutsche Bahn need to work on the cleanliness of their trains as well.
And safely into Bonn ready for our one-day adventure there….. It’s a shame that the app was of limited use during the disruption, as it would have been enormously useful to have information about what to do. Rolling delays are the most frustrating, as it’s not possible to sit somewhere in the warm until the train arrives, it just involves standing on the platform to see what rolls up.
Everything was going marvellously as the train pulled out of Luxembourg, until we started to approach the German border. Then tragedy took place, something went wrong with my phone connecting to Vodafone Deutschland. By something went wrong, I meant everything went wrong and there was no connection at all. There was no wi-fi on the train that I was on either, so for several hours I was totally without mobile data.
I hardly mentioned the situation to Nathan, who managed to get signal on his Nokia 3310, which very much irritated me. But jealously is a very bad vice, so I didn’t tell him that. I turned the phone on and off at least 20 times (my phone, not Nathan’s, although I was tempted to interrupt some snooker game he was avidly playing, like a young Judd Trump), but to no avail. I remained brave, calm and dignified in the situation and tried to forget about the crisis. But I struggled, if I’m being honest.
Fortunately, suddenly when we were in Bonn, around six hours later, the phone signal whirred into action and my e-mails came flooding through. Panic was over and normal service was able to resume, meaning I could go to the pub without fear of missing out on something on-line.
We had an hour or so before our train departed from Luxembourg railway station, so plenty of time to find some sort of Greggs equivalent. Some places appeared to be quite busy, but this patisserie had some seats available, so it seemed an appropriate choice.
All reasonable prices at Newelcome, which is an interesting name for a cafe, although very slightly difficult to know how they want people to pronounce it.
The croissant selection, all very lovely. This location appears to be relatively new as there are very few reviews of it, all of which are from the last few weeks. Table service is offered and it was friendly and engaging, with the food and drink being brought over promptly.
The Natas, or Portuguese custard tart, with latte, came to around £3.50, which was perfectly reasonable for Luxembourg. A relatively basic order, but it all tasted fine. The cafe was clean, there were downstairs toilets which were handy, with the whole atmosphere being relaxed. All rather lovely before the train, but little did I know of the Internet disaster that was about to happen……
Neither Nathan or I are that engaged by Christmas markets, but there’s a rather Christmasy feel about the city at the moment. It’s all a bit much for me, but it must be charming for kids (and expensive for their parents).
A snowman kiosk.
Decorative barrels.
I know two boys who would like this 🙂
A foggy morning.
A Christmas tree, for those who like that sort of thing….
I’m not quite sure what has happened here, but it seems to be quite sad.
And these two photos are from the Christmas market at night, where it was too busy, so we didn’t linger.
Anyway, that’s enough of Christmas for now….
After we’d got off the Megabus from Norwich to London, there was one cultural highlight of London to visit, the Greggs at Stratford Westfield…..
Cakes.
And beautifully presented pastries.
Greggs are giving free Walkers crisps to lots of people who have the Greggs App, which complemented my hot sausage roll beautifully. Friendly service and top quality products, what a quite marvellous way to start a weekend away…..
We needed to get to Heathrow cheaply and easily, but doing this in the morning is a challenging exercise to do cheaply on the trains. So, Megabus were the perfect option, costing around £7 per ticket to get from Norwich to Stratford in London. I’ve caught this bus many times and it’s a stress-free experience usually, with no need to print the tickets out, just showing the driver the e-mail order.
Boarded first, so had a choice of the seats. Since there was no Donovan (excuse the Inbetweeners reference), we decided to sit at the back like some rebels….. It was a very smooth journey and Nathan’s alcoholic drinks the night before didn’t give him any sickness issues. We arrived into London safely at just before 10:00, having set off at 07:30, so the timing of the journey was good and as expected.
The driving was professional, the bus was clean, the driver was professional and it was just a short walk to the Central Line at London Stratford underground station. All very lovely.
