Trains, the way to see Europe. I don't know how many miles I've logged on various trains, from the first overnight I took from Frankfurt to Bologna when I started my year in Italy to study for my masters, to numerous jaunts around Germany, often with a Germanrail pass which saves a lot of money! Trains have changed over the last twenty years, they have become faster, more comfortable, but also a bit more cold. Back in the early eighties one would sit in a compartment of six people, sometimes making new friends, often just exchanging small talk. I chatted with an East German in the summer of '89 on a train, right before everything there started to change. He was talking low, looking over his shoulder so no one could overhear his answers to my questions. I met a group of retired women heading home to Dortmund back in 1983, and they told me stories of the Nazi era, how one of them had to hide in the haystack as Russian soldiers raped her mom, and how her brother never got over the defeat, having been brainwashed to be part of the Hitler youth. I stayed up late joking with a woman from Stuttgart and a couple from Sri Lanka on a train going from Bologna to Munich. I could go on. Now trains are sleeker, cleaner, faster, but a bit more cold, with airplane like seating (though very comfy). Still on local traffic you still find the old cars, and trains still have big windows (though not the kind you can open up -- I used to love to have the window open as the train sped through the countryside), and you can see the landscape as you travel. I love train stations as well, a bustle of activity, everyone coming and going, the bums hanging around, shops selling food and drink for the voyagers. I wish the US had that kind of system, but our distances are too vast (Europe is very compact, you can go from Cologne to Paris in less than four hours, even across Europe from Vienna to Paris is less than a day). The train on the right is an ICE train, the fastest of the German line, going up to 180 MPH.
Go to first photo (that's it for Bonn photos -- for now...check back later)