Breakfast, in a room opening out onto the courtyard,
was standard though luxurious. An innovation was a
butter machine, which dispenses large but standard
pats. [Random note: How'd you like them Pats?]

Allendorf Sekt on every table, a respectable bubbly
especially for the price (free) - it went very well
with the abundant smoked salmon. I think Lilli had a
few sips of it with her ham omelet with onions and ham.

-

A day of sightseeing in this town, which made its
name on two strengths - being the capital of West
Germany after the war (the politicians hated it)
and being the home of Beethoven (he hated it too).
Those prejudicial views aside, it's actually a
pretty attractive old city, though its waterfront
is nothing to write home about (plain as plain, and
the Rhine here is murky and gray).

I'd say that the architecture is generally 18th to
19th, quaint but not a patch on some of the real
historical cities.

A lot of Beethoven stuff, some of which we blundered
into or past; the natives don't make much of him,
and we almost missed the Beethoven memorial by its
being backed up onto by some kind of craft stall.
And at the opera they were doing something by Verdi
or Puccini, I forget; I almost went so as to report
back to my friend Helen, but it involved a walk of
at least 100 paces and an expenditure of at least
100 Euro (for two), so no, sorry.

Instead, wanting to take a brief vacation from pig
parts, we took the bus out to Abacco's, in a modern
pretty faceless outskirt of town, for a hit of beef.

A bottle of Merlot "Or du Sud" (Foncalieu, Pays d'Oc)
was perfectly okay and not too expensive, though not
nearly so golden (literally [it's red] or figuratively
[it's a kind of cheap blend, possibly more Merlot than
other stuff, but you could have fooled me]) as its name
might imply. I quickly switched over to Gaffel's Kolsch
for the rest of my meal.

Lilli ordered the US Prime ribeye rare, which was
oversalted but deliciously fatty. I'd say it was a notch
or two overdone, but that was okay because of the
richness of the meat. It came with thick Germanic steak
fries that she tried in vain to get me to share.

A US Prime sirloin strip extra rare was pretty nice
though also a bit salty. Spinach with a couple soft
garlic cloves was far preferable to the potatoes.

It was still light when we left, so as the bus doesn't
come back this way, we decided to walk to the depot,
quite a long stroll through a weird postwar neighborhood.
It turned out there wasn't going to be a bus back for a
long time, so we found an underground tram that got us
reasonably close to the Bonn Balloon Festival, which was
a carnival-like event with an occasional launching; we
saw a couple giant blimp-shaped things take off before
getting tired of it all and taking a bus back to town;
it was bizarrely crowded, and we got off a good distance
away amd walked the rest of the way back.
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