 Bonn was a city I visited in one day during my stay in Cologne in June 2019. To tell the truth, I didn't know anything about the city but I was curious to visit it because it was linked to childhood memories. Bonn had in fact been the capital of the then West Germany and I remember that as a child, distractedly listening to the news, I heard it mentioned continuously. Added to this was the sound that the word "Bonn" made; it was particular because it was short and began and ended with a consonant. It was probably precisely this detail that captured my attention as a child, the fact is that that "word" has always remained imprinted in my mind. Obviously, as I grew up, I metabolized the fact that the "word" was the name of a city and to tell the truth, I was disappointed by the fact that after the unification of Germany, this city was no longer mentioned. My visit to the former capital of West Germany was therefore a tribute not only to the word but above all to a city that I connected to the carefree period of childhood, a visit linked to associations of ideas that could only bring positive things. Bonn was definitely close to Cologne and together with my friend and travel partner we decided to reach it in the late morning and visit it in a few hours. To tell the truth, we arrived in Bonn so late that we immediately went looking for our favorite restaurant. However, already when we left the station, I was immediately surprised by it or rather by its facade. The Bonn station was a solution like others that had been made in Europe. The building was an old palace that had been used as a station, leading people to get confused by associating certain places with a particular use without making them reflect on their nature. The Bonn station building was in neoclassical style but it was not one of the most imposing and articulated. It certainly struck for its opaque red color but as for decorations it had the essential. The central design entirely in stone was marked by arches, on the ground floor there were four Doric columns while on the first level another four columns with Corinthian capitals were carved into the structure. On the sides of the central part the structure, which was rectangular, expanded symmetrically except that the lateral parts were made of yellow bricks. I don't know if the building originally expanded with a square plan, perhaps with a courtyard in the center, but today it is a sort of rectangle, clearly renovated but ambiguously enhanced. As I explained in my post on Antwerp, if on the one hand I like these solutions because I take a public good and share it with the people, on the other hand the true history of the building should be explained and not the false narrative created in the twentieth century. In other words, immediately after arriving in Bonn, I found a building to photograph carefully, however we had to continue walking because we were a bit hungry. We continued along the central road in front of the station and then turned right after a few blocks. We arrived on a large square in front of the side of the Bonner Münster, the cathedral of Bonn. There was also a round fountain there with the statues of four children if I remember correctly. The Vapiano restaurant we were looking for was just to the right of the cathedral and in front of the fountain, we stopped for lunch, to recover our energy and continue with the discovery of Bonn. After lunch we visited Munsterplatz, an almost rectangular square, quite large but not very populated. On the long side there was a profile view of the cathedral thanks to which it was possible to understand its extension. In addition to the various towers, from the square I realized that almost half of the cathedral was under renovation so in addition to ruining the aesthetics mostly photographic, the negative thing was that we could not visit inside. On the opposite side of the cathedral there was a row of very nice restaurants with lots of people sitting. But the main attraction of the square was a large bronze statue depicting Beethoven! It was surrounded by a square flowerbed full of plants and looking at the statue from the front, it had a beautiful yellow building in the background. The statue was literally stormed by everyone for photos, and I myself had to wait my turn to have a photo taken with the famous composer. After that, the next visit was to the “Sterntor Bonn Innenstadt”, an ancient gate of the city of which only two towers remained; the largest one with a round plan and the other square. The gate, similar to the Hahnentor in Cologne, was smaller, but had been renovated to a better standard. Right in front of the gate, in fact, there was a slightly buried circular fountain. This detail attracted children in particular to go down the few steps and get close to the splashes of water, which they found very amusing. As we moved to reach Markt, the town hall square, I noticed a beautiful Tudor-style building. It overlooked a small triangular square and had a small circular fountain in front. The building was in excellent condition, on the ground floor it housed a shop and I must say that they had managed to incorporate it well with the large windows and the objects on display that did not spoil the rest of the design. What was horrible instead was the building attached to the side, a decidedly ugly building despite also having some wooden design solutions. This Tudor building made me reflect on a detail that I had not noticed before. In Bonn there were still many old buildings and new ones had been built respecting a bit the classic design. Compared to Cologne, Bonn gave the sense of a more intact city, where the new buildings had been built with a criterion more oriented towards aesthetic beauty. Later, still on the way to Markt, we passed through Remigiusplatz, a very pretty triangular square where I immediately noticed a very interesting modern work of art. It was called “Mean Average” and was by the artist Tony Cragg, a person I didn’t know. The statue was made of bronze and very tall, it depicted large stones with a smooth effect, precariously placed on top of each other. Personally, it reminded me of one of those rock formations like those I had seen in Cappadocia but which are very common in desert areas also in the United States, Saharan countries or the Middle East. After taking a few photos with the work, we headed towards one of the last things to see in Bonn; the main square of the town hall.  The station,   Back side of the cathedral   Beethoven statue in Munsterplatz  Side view of the cathedral  Sterntor Bonn Innenstadt  Sterntor Bonn Innenstadt   Tudor-style house    Mean Average Markt was a square in the shape of a quadrilateral, from the road we walked, we came out right in the center. Right there there was a strange monument, its shape resembled an obelisk but it was more of a column that ended in a point. It was surrounded by a circular railing for protection and this made me think that the lower part could house someone's tomb. To tell the truth, I didn't waste much time looking at that work because at the end on the right there was the town hall which was a truly beautiful building. The Rathaus was striking mainly for its off-white color but it had a double staircase and a design where the windows all had a different style for each floor. The decorations enriched the style of the building; from the coat of arms with dragons on the sides of the crown, to a pair of minotaurs next to the clock. It wasn't an imposing and articulated building like the Rathaus in Leuven could be but all those details made it highly elegant. Probably the thing that made you approach the building almost like a sort of magnetism was the color even though it didn't make the decorations stand out. At the foot of the building there was a plaster figure of Beethoven, a life-size representation that was also targeted by tourists for photos. From what I could see, Bonn had great respect and a very high gratitude for Beethoven whose birthplace was a few blocks from Markt. We reached the birthplace-museum in a few minutes, we had no intention of visiting it inside and I must say that I was personally a little disappointed seeing it from the outside. Clearly a little everywhere in the world, the houses where many artists who later became famous were born and lived as young people are never the height of beauty and no one is to blame. In this specific case, Beethoven's house was one like many others, in a narrow street where you couldn't photograph it properly nor did it have a design that was worth studying. The last place to see in Bonn was the riverside and to get there we passed in front of an architectural work that I don't know if I should call ingenious, practical or horrible! The "Koblenzer Tor" was a double tunnel for cars, made from two large entrances to a section of a huge old building. This road also cuts the large "Hofgarten" in two. I don't know the real needs of making a very busy road pass through a park and even worse under the walls of a large old building. I don't even know who was the wretch who came up with this solution and even worse the other wretch who approved the project. The fact is that I never thought I would see something like this in Germany. I have seen similar things in China, where large corporations have failed to evict all the tenants of old buildings and have made roads pass around them. I have also seen tunnels pass under modern skyscrapers but never two tunnels made from two large arches that were once the entrances to a building! Cars in the city are already horrible, seeing them drive under a beautiful old building is the worst thing you can see. While in Düsseldorf they had made an underground tunnel to create a park on the surface, in Bonn not only did the road cut through the existing park but before that it passed under the arches of a building. I really hope that someone with a basic common sense can find a better solution to that outrage and I hope to return to Bonn one day and not see those arches used as a gallery. The riverside area was very well-kept and tidy, there were people doing various activities, many benches and kiosks. However, looking out onto the river it did not give the same feeling of cleanliness and modernity as it had in Cologne. Both the railings and the river ridges were old and dilapidated, it was clear that those infrastructures dated back several decades as could be seen from their design. Furthermore, the part between the river and the railings was very dirty and full of waste. Probably after losing its status as capital, Bonn had not received the attention it had before. What I thought, however, was that Cologne, for example, had not been the capital, but it had been redeveloped-created the Rheinpromenade, a place that had enchanted me immediately. Probably the riverside in Bonn did not have the same characteristics but I’m sure that it was still possible to do a redevelopment work worthy of a city that had once been the capital of West Germany. We spent our last moments in Bonn at the “Park Am Alter Zoll” where we found yet another statue of Beethoven, this time interpreted in a modern way. The park was a quiet place with people doing their typical park routines and in general it seemed like a safe place. We found a tree with branches that covered a huge surface, we had fun taking pictures there playing with the perspective of the tree, where nature showed how much superior it was compared to our species. In the immediate aftermath, especially after leaving the riverfront, Bonn in a certain sense had been a bit below my expectations. However, thinking calmly and even today while writing this post, I have to say that Bonn is above all a beautiful city in its simplicity. Generally very clean, with native people, few tourists and not infested with immigrants wandering aimlessly. An unpretentious city that wants to live in tranquility, a non-exhibitionist city. I probably expected more due to its status as a former capital but it may be that even then the characteristic of the city was still the same. I thought that perhaps Bonn had been chosen above all for this; what better place to host politicians who perhaps do not want distractions? Thinking calmly and looking at the photos I selected for this post, I noticed that Bonn was the example of how cities should be today: safe, clean and with people who dedicate themselves to doing something and not to living in idleness. The two not-so-beautiful things I saw in Bonn were not irreversible things; I'm sure there's an urban planner who still knows how to create a tunnel as well as an architect capable of redeveloping a riverside, all that's needed is a good talent scout.  Markt      Beethoven house   Koblenzer Tor   The riverside     Park Am Alter Zoll  A.M.
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