I will also possibly keeping this short. When I was in Bonn I stayed at a hotel that had internet, but for some reason my phone and laptop, along with other guests were not able to get internet. It could connect, but it just received no internet data. My phone was able to connect and it worked on the first day just fine, though my laptop could not even pick up the wifi channel in the list during my whole stay. The next day (and for the next two days) my phone would only work on wifi for about two minutes when I got up and turned my phone on, before disconnecting and then longer functioning for the rest of the day. I let it go again the second day, and was really annoyed the 3rd day when it didn’t work so I went to the office. And long story short, got the “I’m sorry, oh well…” Though she did spend a bit of time with me trying to figure it out. She said other guests have been complaining recently, and more guests from a week ago from some gaming convention complained about the same issue I was having, so I guess problem solving isn’t something the hotel is too concerned with. But now I’m finally back in a new city, and my god, it’s the fastest internet I’ve had yet, able to upload long videos faster than most other hotels could upload a single image. And that’s not a joke or an over exaggeration.

Anyways, I spent the morning in Bonn… more or less, but once again taking the tram to Drachenfels, to the same stop as the aquarium and walked a bit past it to the Drachenfels Bahn – the tram way up the mountain. The top pictures in ‘yesterday’s’ post show a palace and castle ruins, and that is where I went today. It’s a large area called Siebengebirge (Seven hills) though the region has a lot more than 7 hills and peaks. At the top of the peak of this mountain is nearly ancient medieval castle ruins. There’s a few walls and a tall tower that have all but collapsed completely, as it was destroyed during the 30 Year’s War. A short ways below the ruins is the Schloss Drachenburg. I’ll let Wikipedia explain:

“Schloss Drachenburg is a private villa in palace style constructed in the late 19th century. It was completed in only two years (1882–84) on the Drachenfels hill in Königswinter, a German town on the Rhine near the city of Bonn. Baron Stephan von Sarter (1833–1902), a broker and banker, planned to live there, but never did.

Today the Palace is in the possession of the State Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is served by an intermediate station on the Drachenfels Railway.”

I originally planned to go to this palace/mountain on Saturday, but I looked on google maps and it said it was closed on Sat and Sunday, so I waited till today. I looked again today to make sure, and it said it is open on Saturday and Sunday, so I figured I misread it, or was looking at something else on Saturday. Turns out it really was closed on Sat/Sun because they were filming a show on those 2 days. And today was cleanup day. So there were still tons of crew and film equipment all over the place. The good news was the visit inside was free, instead of the normal 8 Euro fee. The neutral news is that because of all the action going on is that it was guided tours only. The bad news was, some of the rooms were off-limits, and the really bad news, it was in German only. It’s really difficult. I’ve been learning German on and off for 3-4 years now, mostly on. And I can speak it fairly well, and understand usually if spoken slowly. But listening in to a tour, or a casual conversation at normal spoken pace is still far beyond my understanding. I can pick up a couple words here and there of course, but even understanding one full sentence is very tough.

I finally got back, and took the train to my new city, eager to be able to post again, though as for my current location, will remain hidden until tomorrow. I will just post one image from my new city at the bottom.

Video from the top of the mountain:

Going down the mountain in the tram.

And a bonus teaser video from my new city. I want to save the beauty of this town for its own post.

You’ll see tomorrow why this post has the words ‘…And Valleys’ in it. Well, those castles were all in mountains… so then, the second half of the day…