Bonn; Friday, 09 July, 2010

Had I realised first thing how warm today was going to get I might have moderated the speed with which I attacked things at first, and I would certainly have stocked up with more than the three litres of water that I left the newsagents near the hotel with.

First stop of the morning was Königswinter on the opposite side of the Rhine to Bonn, but effectively now a suburb of the city. It marks the start of the area where most of the Riesling wine production comes from. The town itself has centuries of history most noticeably evident in the ruins of a medieval castle that overlook the town from the top of the Drachenfels hill.

There are two ways to get to the castle, you can make the 3KM or so climb up the very steep path that winds its way up through the hills and offering stunning views over the river, or alternatively you can catch the Drachenfelsbahn rack railway which goes virtually the same route, but requires minimal effort on your part. I’ll let you guess which one I took.

The views from the restaurant and viewing platform at the top station are spectacular with clear views across to Bad Godesberg, up the river towards the bend beyond Unkle and back towards Bonn. There was a slight haze forming so I think I could make out the spire of Cologne Cathedral, but it could easily have been a much closer electricity pylon.

I walked up the final short, but very steep, climb to the ruins of the castle and had a look around them before walking back down towards the middle station and the Schloß Drachenburg. I arrived just minutes after the English language tour had set off, and there wasn’t another one for a couple of hours. As the next German tour was also 90 minutes away I decided I probably couldn’t be bothered to look around so I continued my walk down hill stopping for a latish lunch part way down and then diverting off to visit the Reptile Zoo, Dragons Tunnel and the Nibelungenhalle.

Walking round a reptile zoo I had assumed that the substantial heat was coming from all the lamps keeping the creatures warm, I hadn’t realised that actually it was just the genuine heat of the day, and more importantly also the humidity. As I continued to wander down the hill back into Königswinter itself and proceeded to drink quite rapidly the remaining two litres of water I had left with me. By the time I got back down into the town it was almost unbearable. Up on the hill there had been a bit of the breeze to take the edge off of the humidity, but down in the town it was what I think can be described as like being in a pressure cooker.

Thankfully away from the centre of the town, down by the river, it was a little cooler, with a bit of a breeze, so I brought another couple of litres of water and in the end spent about two hours just sitting underneath a tree, in the shade, watching the traffic on the Rhine go past

It’s amazing how in the heat, not doing anything makes you so tired (of course the hiking down a 3KM path on a 1 in 5 incline during the hottest part of the day might have had something to do with that), so after a while I caught the tram back into Bonn and onto the hotel to get a change of clothes and to drop off all the empties. In the end I actually had a bit of a nap in the hotel (as the very nice chambermaid had switched on the air con onto arctic when she tided the room and consequently it was absolutely gorgeous inside.

Refreshed I wandered back out of the hotel around 8pm to look for dinner. I had thought that by now (and lulled into a false sense of security by the air con in the room) it might be a little cooler, but the wall of hot air that hit me as I stepped out of the hotel pointed to it being a sticky night.

I caught the tram into the city centre, had a brief wander round and stopped for a small bit to eat (the one advantage of it being hot is that you don’t want to eat so much!), and then caught the bus back to the hotel for some more sleep.