Today’s Word Press blogpost prompt is “What’s your favourite cartoon ?”. Out of loyalty I should say “Anything by Mark Crilley“, I guess, but that might be a slur on Mark’s artistry so I’ll say this one;
Always walking, always smiling, always telling fibs.
2nd November 2022.
I continued my exploration of Leverkusen, perhaps the least visited city (pop. 171,000) with a team playing in the Champions League.
Heading out of the shops towards the Rhine you get a string of gorgeous town houses,
and the (very) occasional kneipe.
That one is a famous jazz club, apparently. Beer £4 a half litre. Don’t ask them to play the Samantha Fox single.
Beyond there lies…nothing. Honestly, I walked 15 minutes and saw not a soul. Empty playground, silent houses, locked church.
I’ve often found that quietness, wandering round small German cities, in Memmingen most noticeably. Too much solitude is bad for the soul. I typed “pub” into Google and found only “Fruh am Markt“.
It’ll do. Very much your European cafe bar with beer rather than Brauhaus or kneipe, the cheery barmaid offered me an ashtray before taking my order. Except of course, you don’t actually order beer, you just put your beermat on display.
The kolsch (top) was less carbonated than in Fruh am Dom, perhaps the sun does that ?
Nice enough, with perhaps ten (10) blokes of various age puffing away and “Take A Chance On Me” your ABBA soundtrack.
Are you legally allowed to have less than three glasses of Kolsch ? (see Boak & Bailey here). I had a couple.
On the stroll back to the station, I decided that Leverkusen was no Bracknell. Scott reckons it’s the Eindhoven of the Ruhr, and he may be right.
Whatever, Christuskirche is a marvel.
And near the station Brückenschänke almost dragged me in with its umlauts and net curtains, and now I get home and find ZERO reviews of it, even on Pubs Galore, I wish I’d popped in.
But I fear I might never have left, and then I wouldn’t have been able to follow the footprints back to Platform 78 for the trip back to Cologne.
And then Mrs RM would have died of starvation, and we can’t have that.
retiredmartin 
Three of those glasses isn’t that much beer, is it? And they go down awfully fast.
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I guess not. Not much more than a pint (no idea about their full measures !).
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Always walking? Should be Felix the cat.
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Oh yes ! Loved Felix as a child. Was he in black and white though ?
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Ah yes. So few things are these days.
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Thanks for the shoutout, Martin– I’m at the stage where I’m grateful being named as anyone’s favorite anything!
Indebted to you for allowing me an armchair visit to Germany by way of your blog. Many happy memories of my travels there circa 1985, a journey that was at least partially soundtracked by then-brand-new Frankie Goes to Hollywood. 🙂
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What a time to be alive 1985 was !
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“I continued my exploration of Leverkusen, perhaps the least visited city (pop. 171,000) with a team playing in the Champions League”
Bangor or Caersws, depending on whether “city” can be replaced by hamlet…
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“Least visited” rather than smallest ! Bangor is a veritable tourist honey pot, if only for Patrick’s Bar.
NB Did you mean Caersws or TNS of Llansantffraid-ym-Mechain ?
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I just fact checked myself and it turns out Caersws only made the Intertoto Cup! (Before my old mate Quinno visits). Total Network Solutions/The New Saints is a good one.
If this was a pub quiz question, there’d be hours of arguments..I may have to commit it to memory for Lucifers or the Golden Smog.
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The history of TNS is long and tortuous, and they now play over the border in Oswestry !
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