Bonn Hangelar, destination extraordinaire, sanctuary for endangered species

Weeks later I realise that I neglected to post anything about Bonn Hangelar, outrageous!  We were met with an extremely warm welcome from Juergen who runs the airfield and he had organised that we were met by representatives of some of the clubs on the airfield - it is the second biggest general aviation airfield in Germany and has around 160 planes based there.  (General aviation or GA is people like ourselves, as opposed to commercial aviation or scheduled flights which is people like Ryan Air).

Christian in the middle, Juergen on the right

Juergen is a pilot himself and very kindly took the time to suggest local destinations, copy their information and contact their aeroclubs, which is incredibly kind in someone running such a busy airfield.

Christian who was Germany's ambassador to China in former times organised a meeting with a journalist from Aerokurier who wrote an article about our trip.  He also helped us with some ideas (and charts!) for our eastern block travels.

Julian and Heiko from Aerokurier, with a Fieseler Storch, owned by a member of his flying club

Bonn Hangelar is basically a very large field, which means that a special, endangered, flower grows well there, which it can't in the surrounding built up area.  Maybe not quite as sexy as the pouched marmot that lives on Brno's airfields, but preserving bio-diversity is an important, though little considered aspect of an airfield's role in its community.

This special flower meant that the pope was unable to hold his youth congress on the airfield in approx. 2000, I think the plants are much more important.

Bonn itself is a lovely, quiet town, with some beautiful buildings, its location makes it a good destination as there is a lot to be seen in the area, as evidenced by my previous posts!

Speed canards and carbon fibre bike parts.

Now you may have occasionally heard me talk about Speed Canards and how I am obsessed with the concept of rocket ship styled planes. So of course when we were tempted into the lovely VeloCity bike store in Bonn by the folding bikes in it's window display, it was completely natural that Franz who works there previously worked with them...

This experience has lead to his ongoing interest in carbon fibre bike parts and he has recently written a chapter of a book for bile mechanics on the topic.  He an his girlfriend Katrin were kind enough to invite us around for an exquisite dinner, which i shall now record here for posterity.

with Franz and Katrin

Smoked black pudding with a layer of creme fraiche and a layer of apples gratineed.
Kalbsroulade, veal roll with sage with local organic white asparagus which had a great flavour and potatoes.
Icecream with a special date, apple and pear reduced sauce from liege.
It's so nice meeting people with similar hobbies to myself.

Cycling south from Bonn to the spectacular Drachenfels

When we told the locals that we intended to cycle north to Cologne, they earnstly informed us that we would be much better off riding south long the Rhein, as it's one of the loveliest rides in Germany. Well I can't comment on that, but it was a truly stunning ride - many tree lined alleys and parks.
It's amazing how important hills are to making an attractive landscape, and putting castles on top of them does add to ther attractiveness, so we made sure we flew past the Drachenfels (dragon cliff) when we left Bonn.

To Cologne and back with our bikes*

Some of the sights along the way, as well as the famous cathedral.
* n.b. i didn't say we cycled all the way...

Lunching in the cathedral square

Cycling in to Cologne, just before we gave up and got the train :-)

Isn't this cathedral fantastic, the tower climb was probably the best I have done in terms of beauty of the building from the inside. And oddly enough about a year later I am still returning to climb it in my dreams.