I decided to finally bow down to repeated requests (imaginary, of course) for a more 'bird-eye view' of my current surroundings and do a small picto-post on exactly what is around me in this little picturesque town on Aachen.

To give a little historical background (since I am always concerned about the KW or 'knowledge quotient' of my small but loyal band of readers), Aachen is possibly one of the oldest cities in Europe, going right back to the ancient times of blah-blah-blah. Since I have done my historical duty, lets now proceed to the pictures.

So this is the town square or an Italian sort of Piazza (No relation to Pizza whatsoever - so don't look around expecting to see vendors waving triangular pieces of fat in the air). Its sort of the central part of Aachen, with shops surrounding this building. This beautiful building is in fact the the 'Rathaus' or the City Hall. What makes it absolutely fabulous is that the entire facade is lined with images of ancient German Kings gone by, and so if one can look closely, you can actually distinguish the individual features of each. (Below)

Since I have only JUST realized one can post videos as well here (yes yes, scoff all you young ones) I shall take a nice 360 degree video so that you can actually see the entire Piazza.

So THIS building is a grand 5 minutes walk from my place. Right opposite the Rathaus is the horribly commercialized Starbucks, but wait ... with free internet!!! :-) So many a post I upload is often the spawn of this beautifully inspiring view and a double mocha chocha latte ... WITH no whipped cream.

If you wander down any of the paths from here (its kinda like Rome at this point - all the roads lead decidedly away from the Rathaus), and decide to take a sharp right after the Rathaus, you come to this extremely impressive view. (below) Another central square (with no markets) but where I have seen many students come to do the muchly famous German version of 'timepass'. Aah. Its these things that reaffirm in me that we are all in fact a single race.

Below - one of the little green entries to the Square of Timepass (since I do not believe they thought it important enough to name)

(View right from the centre)

Isn't that simply gorgeous-ity? However from this same point if I was to take a 18o-degree turn and look behind me, this is what I'd find - essentially the back of the Rathaus ...

(And a CU of one of the spires - this cute little fat man)

And so surrounding this entire area is the shopping 'markt' or shopping area ... lots more images just taken randomly during my little jauntlets which struck my fancy.

(Took this one specially for all my Vodafone friends ... :-)

I just loved how this road looked. Very European!

And finally to close this post, a picture I took which I found later to be superlatively spooky in nature. Not sure why (and no - its not because of its bad composition :-)

Much Danke ... and till next time.