Aachen

We followed our noses to the gingerbread shops . . .

but they all said they do not have gingerbread. When I pointed at cookies that certainly looked and smelled like gingerbread, they said they were "Printen". Rolf speaks fluent German but he has not heard the word "Printen" before. Frustrated, we rested at an outdoor café across a yellow brick building that fascinated me. Many buildings had red or brown brick bu this had yellow . While Rolf enjoyed his coffee and brandy, I looked at the tourism brochure and it said right there that gingerbread is an Aachen specialty for which the city is rightly famous. So, I figured that Printen must be gingerbread because all the pastry shops had rows of shelves with Printen on open trays and gift-wrapped boxes in pine wood, bright tin, and enamel that all said "Aachen Printen". We hurried back to the bakeshop, pausing briefly at interesting landmarks like the sculptures of the "Bakhauv", "Chicken Thief" and the "Marionettes Fountain".

Aachen is a small town in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany. Also known as Aix la Chapelle, Aachen retains some of relics of the time when it was a Roman camp, as in the remains of a Roman porticus right in the middle of a small busy square. Thermal springs that reach temperatures up to 74°C abound in Aachen and attracted first the Celts, then the Romans, to settle in the area nown known as Aachen. In 768 AD, Charlemagne inherited his father's kingdom and built a palatinate that became his permanent residence. It is said that Charlemagne loved to swim and he would often invite his sons and his court to join him at the thermal springs.

Elisenbrunnen marks the location of an old Roman bath and the Tourism Office is located to the right of the building (see inset). In the main hall are two fountains with continuously pouring sulphuric water that is pleasantly warm but smells rather of rotten eggs, filling the round hall with its odor. On one wall hangs a plaque recording all the royal and famous personages who bathed at Elisenbrunnen.

Rolf was delighted with the water and filled his flask with it, after splashing his face and arms. Me.... I refused to wash my hands in it or take even a small sip even if I was thirsty with the gingerbread I had been munchin. Never mind if Charlemagne loved those thermal springs, I prefer the Pansol and Los Baños hot springs. For two days Rolf sipped water from that flask but threw it out the day "the water had lost its nice smell".

It was not easy to find the entrance to the church because the door opens into a side street and there were renovations being on the exterior at the time of our visit.

Charlemagne was buried beneath the west door of the cathedral on the same day he died, January 28, 814. The Cathedral has an octagonal structure, each side of which is 18 ft and 48 ft high up to the top wall, plus 12 ft more up to the roof. Charlemagne's throne was said to be in the west wing of he main hall, with a direct view of the altar of the Saviour at the east side.

The Cathedral is magnificent, with its huge marble columns. Corinthian capitals and the mosaic at the Dome showing the "24 Elders of the Revelation" and the opper and guilt candelabra that was a gift of Frederick II in 1215. Standing at the throne room of Charlemagne made me feel that I had stepped centuries back in time, but I could not stay long inside the church because I kept remembering the hundreds of thousands who had died in "in the name of Christianity" In a small chapel in the cathedral was a small altar with an interesting crucifix, and outside the chapel was a baptistry with a replica of a skull whose symbolism I did not care to interpret.

The Aachen Rathaus (town hall) looks like an old castle, and ideed itwas, once upon a time. But it was getting late and it was time to start looking for Hauptbahnhof because Orhan drove us to Aachen from Brauweiler and we did not know where to get the train back to Köln.

On our way way to the Hauptbahnhof, we passed by a street violinist who was playing some classical music that sounded quite melancholy. There was also the "Money Fountain" that captured the changing values of contemporary society, particularly in terms of material wealth.

Aachen's theater is big and modern but with a classic facade, in the same way that the city's Hauptbahnhof was a modern affair with a facade that reveals the rich and ancient heritage of the city.

One day in a city that was once the center of a great empire would always be memorable for me, but it is Aachen's "printen brot" that would make me go back to Aachen again and again.... just as I now sing "All I want for Christmas is a Printen Brot ..."