A Tourist from Oman to Germany

German beauty in contrast to its history

Every journey is done twice: Mentally and physically. The interaction between anticipation and reality might be the nicest, but also the most difficult.

A tourist from the Sultanate of Oman planning to travel to Germany has a certain idea of what he is going to meet:  He might expect an air filled with classical music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with the peculiar smell of  lilac, cherry-blossoms or the famous perfume of “Eau de Cologne”.  He might be astonished of the different structure of towns, different ways of fashion and different colours. 

And what is the reality?  

Still sitting in the airplane – arriving in winter – he will see white and grey as  dominating colours under the wings of his airplane. The landscape might be covered by blankets of snow.  Arriving in autumn mostly orange and red is to be seen. Trees are changing the dress of their leaves. Arriving in spring or summer, green will hit his sight in all variations:  Dark green forests and lush lawns surrounding not only the Airport of  Frankfurt.

Although Germans suffer in winter of frozen hands and feet and of a certain melancholy, they estimate their seasonal climate-change as a kind of wealth, a rich variety of landscape-changes.

Landscape – what is it? A place to live in, a source of delight, something to exploit?

It became general opinion, that landscape includes everything that man has added to nature – including cities, motorways and industrial conurbations. German landscape is extraordinarily diverse, basically divided in six major types: The high mountains of the Alpes, the hilly Uplands with huge forests and meadows, the fertile plains of the North, the River-valleys with its vast vineyards, the lakes of northern plains  and the beaches and Islands in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.

When my family had built a house South of Frankfurt, we were first refused planning and construction permit, because the site we had chosen, above the old Roman Rhine-valley-trail, dominated by a fortress on top of the “Melibocus”, the highest hill of the “Odenwald”, is under a  rigorous building legislation. In spite of those regulations, the landscape had changed enormously in a period of  two decades. Roads were built, some schools, and – important ! - enchanting guest-houses have been added. But the fortress is still untouched. There are 19.000 of them only in the German-language speaking regions.

Frankfurt– situated at the river Main and the last 50 years dominated by American  style  – and therefore sometimes called smilingly  Mainhattan  - could be the first impression of the Omani Tourist. And really Frankfurt in its new part is a kind of small Manhattan  - or even Dubai., highlighted by green parks and inn-gardens facing the river Main.   And here the tourist gets a first insight:   The beauty of the German landscape is in strange contrast to its history. All the important and good-looking cities he is going to visit have been heavily destroyed 60 years ago, in world war II, for example: Berlin, Cologne (Köln), Hamburg, Dresden, Leipzig and of course Frankfurt. Its old part had been reconstructed according to old plans some decades ago, specially the picturesque birthplace of  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Since 250 years the poets name is found everywhere. He is the genius of this business town, today a kind of transit-town, a busy coming-and-going-town.

But a tourist  will not stay in Frankfurt for long. He might take a train-ride to the nearby Wiesbaden. By 26 thermal-springs this town became a high class health resort….with a famous gamble-Casino. The visitor could go to “Aukamm-Bath”, where he will swim outside by a 34 C warm water-temperature  in the middle of the snow.

After having had his healthy bath, the tourist from Oman will have a challenging choice: How to continue? By a rented car, by a boat on the river Rhein (Rhine) or by a comfortable high-speed-train? Let’s presume, he takes a river-boat to Cologne. He might be astonished by all the romantic fortresses and castles along his track. Every castle, every rock has its own bizarre legend, specially the hundred or so meters high rock of Loreley, named after a beautiful girl. According to the legend, she used to sit on this rock, just at the most narrow path of the river Rhine. Instead watching carefully the River’s narrow track,  most of the captains had a look up to the rock,  where Loreley  was sitting and gently combing  her fair long hair. They got confused, their ship hit the rock and went down,  the sailors perished…

In spite of  the Loreley-rock, hopefully our tourist arrives at Cologne safely. He had to pass the small and pleasant town of Bonn, the former capital of  West-Germany. The area of Bonn is snuggled in seven hills – and that’s it. No more hills from now on to the North-Sea.

The most impressive building of Cologne is the dome, destroyed in 1944 and rebuilt. Cologne has 1 Million inhabitants and among the many churches at leas t 13 from the 13 medieval. Most of them have been built on Roman heritage ground. A great variety of guest-houses and hotels are available, as well as Museums of Modern Art and not to forget, the huge Roman-German-Museum. Arriving in February, there is no way to escape the foolish festival of carnival.

The next visiting point could be Aachen, near the Belgium boarder, a place of hot springs, discovered and used by the Romans at their arrival 2000 years ago.

The town had developed around the old “Pfalz”, a kind of castle of Emperor Karl der Grosse (Charles the Great) and was for 600 years the coronation place of all the German emperors. In 1656 the town was  - for the first time – destroyed, rebuilt and again destroyed  - only 60 years ago. (World War II)

Travelling through Germany means that any consideration is affected by the past.  The tourist will learn about old sores, about occupying forces, about expulsion and about the Sisyphus mechanic of destruction and reconstruction.

Aachen of nowadays is rather European. Every year the “Karlspreis” (Charles-Award)  is given to one  worthy citizen of the new Europe.

The strangest “inhabitant” of Aachen ever was a white elephant, named Abul Abbas. Its home town was Baghdad where it belonged - 1200 years ago - to powerful and famous Caliph Harun Al-Rashid. Harun sent the elephant as a symbol of sympathy  to emperor Charles the Great to Aachen as a present. The animal together with some merchants had a real 5-years-long trip and they arrived in Aachen in July 802. One year ago, in 2003,  the municipality of Aachen recalled this fascinating history by the 3-month exhibition “Ex-Oriente”.

The “Orientarum

“of Germany could be reached by train, by airplane or by car on infinite auto routes, not possible until year 1990, because of the wall and the cruel boarder-regime between East and West of Germany.  

My home-town Berlin was divided too. Today there is few left of the former famous wall. And there is few left of the world-war II destruction. The torso of the “Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche (Emperor-Wilhelm-Reminding-Church) will remind  future generation: “No more wars!”

But remarkable flashy row of new high-risers for government and commercial use can be seen all around. Berlin’s cultural events attract again millions of tourists every year.

But my favourite town to visit in Central Germany is the small town of  Werningerode, carefully renovated after the German reunion. Its medieval fortifications and palaces are witnesses of a historically important past. Some cosy guest-houses are snuggled in the massif of  the “Harz”-mountains. From here it’s easy to visit the rebuilt Dresden, the so called Paris of  

Eastern Germany.

Let me mention Hamburg, the northern town with its annually in May celebrated port-birthday. This year even His Majesty’s Dhouw had left Muscat in middle of March and had been overwhelmingly  welcomed by Hamburg citizens and the media. The Omani sailing vessel is expected back for September in Muscat.

Back from Germany came Nadia, my Omani friend. She was in Munich and full of delightful impressions (except the fact, that her hand bag was stolen). She was impressed by the Alps, by the different lakes, the BBQ’s with friends, by the shopping possibilities. At least her anticipation became positive reality.

And according to an Arabic saying about the 5 benefits of travelling: She had at least 3 benefits of her journey to Germany:

1) She acquired knowledge

2) she was introduced  to a new culture, new landscapes

3) she made new friends