Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Family Ride by Bicycle to Guided Tour of Organ in Bonn`s Minster Basilica

Last Saturday , shortly after nine in the morning, my two younger children, 6 and 8 years, and I went by bicycle downtown, which is about 8 kilometers away from where we live.  I rode the Brompton and my kids rode their children`s bikes.  We compared the sizes of our bikes` wheels.  My Brompton had the smallest size, 18 inches, compared with 20 inches and 24 inches of the children bikes.  The reason I am telling you this is that the Brompton is an excellent choice of a bicycle when riding with children.  As an adult you are riding nearly at equal hight with the kids and this enables you to participate in the children`s way of experiencing the ride, you even get close to their perspectives.

We went to join a guided tour of the organ in Bonn`s main church, the Minster Basilica by organist Markus Karas.  The Roman Catholic church had invited families and children to this event.  No surprise, because during the summer of this year the 50th anniversary of the organ was celebrated.


                  Youtube video, Bonn Minster Basilica and the sound of its organ
           
Organist Markus Karas did a great job in explaining the history of the organ and in giving demonstrations of  his talent.  For a nice photo from the local newspaper you may click here:
Newspaper article (Generalanzeiger) with a nice picture of the event.
(In case you read German, the newspaper article is a nice report of the event.  However, the name of the artist who did the wood crafting should  be added: Manfred Saul from Hennef.)


A technical detail of interest to my Brompton friends.  I was allowed to park my bike inside the church, right next to the entrance and ticket sales desk. - I  put it there in the folded  position while the bikes of the kids were chained together outside the church.

And finally, something entirely different:  it may be interesting to know that also in Germany there are protests against the power of the big financial institutions (Occupy Wallstreet!) We saw a demonstration of about 150 people with posters shouting slogans. I was given a leaflet with a message that reminded me of critical ideas of the student movement back in the 1960s.