In Germany, the common frog is called the "weather frog" - Wetterfrosch - because it was long believed that it could predict the weather. Of this, the only truth is that frogs are more active in nice weather because insects are also active. But what is important for this story is that the "weather frog" is actually a humorous term for a person who presents the weather forecast as part of the regular news.
Last night, before the main news, the "frog" announced cool but unusually sunny weather for the Rhineland in February. And indeed, a brilliant day dawned.
TRAVELING BY TRAM
I decided to go to Bensberg, a town located at the crossing of the Rhine plain into the first hills. You can get there from Cologne by tram number 1.
Since it's Sunday, few people use public transportation in the morning. I enjoy a doubly rare sight – lots of light in an almost empty vehicle.
The last buildings of Cologne are long behind us. Behind the glass, forests and single-story houses alternate. It is clear that here, too, the wealthier class has created a refuge from the madness of the metropolis.
I get off at the last stop. I didn't know what to expect. Bensberg is clearly a blend of tradition and modern construction from the economic miracle of half a century ago. I climb up the main street – the entire settlement rises in terraces towards the church and castle on the top of the hill.
The main pedestrian street is no different from similar ones in the heart of such German towns. It has everything you need to live a peaceful life.
Bensberg has its own identity, although it lost its city status more than half a century ago and was registered as the fifth district of the city of Bergisch Gladbach. The town did not want to come to terms with the new situation, they went to court through all instances and – lost. But in cultural memory and local pride, their town is still an independent city.
It is assumed that the Frankish rulers built a fortified seat at the place where the Rhine River turns into a foothills about ten kilometers northeast of Cologne.
STONE IN A CONCRETE EMBRACE
The fortified castle of Bensberg came into the possession of the local counts in the 12th century – who founded the County. It would later become a duchy and would last until the Napoleonic conquests. It was the ducal seat of the “waiter” – a man who was actually the finance minister and chief treasurer.
Of course, centuries began to build fortifications after the fall of the duchy. But Bensberg remembered its glorious past, so the city decided to rebuild the ruined fortress. When architect Gottfried Bem presented his design, the city administration was delighted. Instead of reconstruction, Bem proposed a concrete structure. That was in the 1960s. In architecture, concrete was treated as the material of the future. Like a prosthesis in an old man's mouth, a city hall was built on the site of the former count's fortress, encompassing the towers of the Old Castle and the entire space between them.
To this day, this unusual embrace of stone and concrete is not to everyone's taste. But one thing is certain – Bensberg has gained another landmark.
I can't completely side with one camp or the other. For a moment the whole thing seems like a bold aesthetic endeavor, and immediately afterwards my sympathy for stone as a building material and my aversion to concrete kick in. I've seen more successful combinations of old and new. But in a time when the fear of nuclear annihilation is once again present, perhaps it's worth looking at thick concrete walls and – probably – deep underground chambers differently.
OLD TOWN
Behind the town hall is a street with a symbolic name – Zamkov prokop. Should we say that it circles the former castle? It is an alley with the most preserved old buildings. The oldest of them is at number 17. It was built around the year XNUMX by Wetzel von Botlenberg. He was the duke's "waiter".
The building was owned by this noble family until the end of the 17th century. It was purchased by a wealthy local sajdžija, and in 1927 the city government bought it and five years later opened the "Homeland Museum".
It was renovated in 1981 and became the Museum of Mining, Crafts and Local Economy. As a high school student from Tuzla, I have a soft spot for mining towns. This entire area, from Solingen to Düsseldorf, was known for its lead, silver and coal deposits back in Roman times. In the 18th and 19th centuries, more and more local residents made a living by going underground. The mines are now mostly closed. Of course, such a mining story deserves a museum, even if it is in a house built by a nobleman.
A little further down the same alley I see several beautiful houses built as "fahverk". The skeletal structure of the beams remains visible, forming the so-called "Prussian wall". In our country, construction used to be done in a similar way, so from those times in every town there are "bondručare", houses with a wooden skeleton construction. It seems to me that they are better maintained here.
On the same street is the historic Vermelskirchen inn, first mentioned in historical sources in 1760. It is also known that the house was built in 1715, so this beauty is exactly 310 years old. However, there is a document that already in 1731 indicates a certain Jakob Stein as an innkeeper. It is quite certain that the current owners have owned the house and restaurant since 1889.
I peeked at the menu. I was intrigued by the gender-segregated steaks – men’s with bacon, women’s with pineapple. I found a few more specialties that reflect local characteristics, otherwise the menu is quite international. And almost every dish costs over twenty euros. Another thing is unusual. The restaurant is closed on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and is normally only open for lunch from 12 to 14 hours, and after that from 18 to 22. It seems to defy the hustle and bustle of the nearby metropolis. The owner’s family knows best how to run a place like this, after all, they have four generations of experience.
Three elderly ladies emerge from the restaurant, engaged in lively conversation. This inn is both very local and very high-end. It is frequented by well-to-do people who want to enjoy the benefits of the analog world, leaving the nervous algorithms to other generations.
BENSBERG CASTLE
At the top of the hill, a real architectural gem awaits me – Bensberg Castle. Its silhouette looms over the town, giving it a more important and powerful character. The town's buildings are gathered around the castle like chickens around a hen.
Only when you approach the castle's mighty foundations do you wonder where the facade is. If I were an architect, I would build it facing west, where behind Cologne the sun knows how to sink into the endless plain towards the Netherlands.
This castle was built in the early 18th century as a hunting and holiday residence. Johann Wilhelm, one of the Palatinate Electors, was powerful enough in the empire to have the Venetian Count Mateo Alberti build a castle for his second wife in 1703 – models included Versailles and Winchester Castle. The building was admired by contemporary chroniclers Johann Wolfgang Jacobi and his much more famous namesake Johann Wolfgang Goethe.
The man in whose imagination the castle was created, Johan Vilhelm, did not live to see his vision fully realized, as he died in 1716. His successors neglected the castle, preferring other residences.
When you see this castle on a sunny day on top of a wooded hill, you can't help but be amazed at the aristocratic will that places magnificent buildings where it is most difficult to lift the stone. Such buildings are quite normal in Paris, but here, above a small German town, they are a true miracle.
During Napoleon's presence in these parts, the castle was forcibly converted into a military hospital. Typhus broke out in it. In the valley, on the road to Bergisch Gladbach, mass graves were created, because the dead were buried quickly. History did not leave the castle alone either. First, during the Prussian rule, it was converted into a school for cadets. A memorial plaque in honor of the fallen cadets reminds us of that time, which lasted until the outbreak of the Great War. After the First World War, the French occupation troops were stationed there. When they withdrew, the city did not know what to do with the magnificent building, so dozens of homeless families settled in the castle.
NEW SHINE
It is rare to encounter such historical irony – homeless people in the count's residence. The Nazis opened their educational and ideological school in the castle. During World War II, concentration camp inmates and prisoners worked inside the complex. Two were shot in the courtyard.
After the war, Belgian occupation troops moved in here and a Belgian high school was opened.
In 1997, the Belgians had already gone home from a unified Germany, and the castle had somehow returned to its aristocratic identity. A five-star hotel was created. I rarely have the opportunity to enter hotels whose walls have more than three centuries of historical memory.
Of course, the hotel is exactly as I imagined it. Piano music in the lobby, people talking in low voices, cutlery clinking in the cafe.
From the advertising brochure I learn that on February 599th, the hotel restaurant Vendome will be hosting a real culinary spectacle. For just XNUMX euros per person, you can enjoy a six-course meal, accompanied by champagne and wines from the Denhof cellar. The hotel restaurant has been awarded two stars by Michelin inspectors with the following statement: Cuisine excellente, mérite un détour. Which means: “Excellent cuisine, worth a visit.” This is thanks to one of the stars of Germany’s gastronomic heavens, chef Joachim Wiesler.
I gave up on my intention of having coffee in the hotel cafe. There are kinds of beauty that I admire from afar on principle.
It is completely free to admire the three-part ensemble of sculptures in front of the hotel. The author is one of the greatest German sculptors, Markus Limperz. Although the other two sculptures are also interesting, I was particularly attracted to the one with the strange name "Ugly Greets Beauty".
I read in Lippertz's biography that such a sculpture was first made for an avenue in Karlsruhe. The man who as a young man enlisted in the Foreign Legion and then deserted, the West Berlin bohemian who was expelled from the Düsseldorf Art Academy and yet found his artistic path, is certainly as interesting a figure as his works.
Still, the most beautiful thing I saw that day was the view through the castle gate guarded by noble eagles. The street descends like a slide, becoming ever narrower in the eye. And in the distance, the two spires of Cologne Cathedral emerge from the Rhine haze. The only clouds in the sky are made by distant thermal power plants. In my life, the town of Bensberg and a beautiful winter Sunday have met. A person is not given many days like this, in which there is not a single sudden movement or sound. In which the light generously spills over human buildings, as if it does so just for me, because there is no tourist hubbub. That is what I think as I descend the street towards the starting station of the tram that will take me back to Cologne.
Bonus video:
