I’m just on the way home from a brilliant trip to Bonn, one of the towns with which Oxford is twinned.  The flight is delayed so I’m writing this.  There was a delegation of seven City Councillors and a few others from Oxford and I should say at this point that we all travelled at our own expense. I took Gordon, my partner too.  We flew into Cologne on Wednesday 1st June and visited the wonderful cathedral there before having a good lunch and getting the train South to Bonn.

The visit programme started at 5.30pm with a reception in the Stadhaus in Bonn and then had a welcome dinner at the old Rathaus, that is in the middle of a re-furb.

Day two consisted of a wonderful boat trip down the Rhine to Remargen, where there is the remains of a bridge that was very important towards the end of World War II and a museum about it.  We hopped across the river while we were there to a little village called Erpel and had a needed ice-cream.  We got the boat back to Bonn a bit later and spent the evening having a nice meal in a Turkish restaurant with our hosts, Elmar Konrads-Hassel and his wife Ursula Hassel.

Day three started at the Stadhaus with an interesting seminar about all the fair trade activity that Bonn and its council takes part in.  We share Oxford experiences and were all presented with some fair trade coffee.  Lunch followed and then we had a free afternoon.  Gordon and I used that time to visit the cathedral in Bonn and the Beethoven memorial as well as the protestant church.  We went on after that to the Scholsskirche (the University Church) for an excumenical service that was held in both English and German.  I was pleased to be able to take part in the prayers of intercession, fortunately in English!  We then processed in our robes to the Bonn Oxford Club where we were treated to a barbecue supper and entertainment by the Oxford Fiddle Group, another part of the English delegation visiting Bonn.

Day four was an incredibly hot day so worked well for the Bürgerfest where lots of groups both from Bonn and Oxford gave performances.  The Bonn Irish dancers were among them as were the group from the Pegasus Theatre and the Oxford Fiddle Group.  Gordon and I visited the Beethoven Haus in the afternoon where an really excellent audio guide (thankfully in English) gave me a real sense of a tour through the great composer’s life from start to finish.  There was also a very modern 3D rendition of some scenes from Fidelio where the singers were 3D shapes and we could move them around to hear the change in musical effect.  We briefly visited the Arithmeum, a fascinating collection of mathematical and arithmetical instruments.  We didn’t have long there as it shut at 6pm.  The final evening’s entertainment was as the Haus den Karnevals where we were fed again and then took part in a sort of gig called Losst mer Singe – where we had to join in with a band singing carnival songs in a local dialect called Bönnsch.

Our last day started with another wonderful breakfast from our hosts and then a trip to a fairly new museum of  the history of Germany.  It covered the period from 1945 right up to the current day and gave a fascinating insight in the German Democratic Republic (from 1949-1989) and the Federal Republic of Germany and how reunification had come about.  I was interested to hear about the struggles of the former GDR to adapt to the economic freedoms enjoyed by the Federal Republic.  We finished off our trip by taking our hosts to lunch at Restaurant am Rheinaue (basically a lea on the Rhine).

I was extremely pleased to be able to attend this twinning trip and I feel I know some of my fellow councillors in Oxford much better now, as well as having made some wonderful new friends in Germany.  I do think that twinning is great for Cities and brings about an international dimension to their civic lives.  It’s also great to be able to take young people along such as those from the Pegasus Theatre as I think such things hugely broaden their horizons.

I look forward both to welcoming new friends from Bonn back to Oxford and to visiting Bonn and other twins of Oxford and strongly encourage other councillors and members of community groups to do the same.  It’s definitely well worth the effort and expense of the travel.  The youngest member of our group was still at primary school and the oldest over 90 so there are no excuses!