In 1984 I visited Germany for the first time.

Although I didn’t get to visit Aachen in 1984, I definitely wanted to see Aachen. Having read up on Charlemagne during my high school’s medieval history class I well understood the core concepts: throne, crowning, important location.  

Instead of Aachen in 1984, I was placed as a summer exchange student in a small town in Westfalia. It was a beautiful town with gabled houses and a medieval ruin. I took walks, but as I was socially not very outgoing, you might say I didn’t “react” well to being in a small town. I started to watch Herz zu Herz (Hart to Hart dubbed in German which is the only way to watch Hart to Hart and in addition I recommend a minimal grasp of German to make the experience much more interesting and, indeed, almost fascinating). Thus, I sat mesmerized in front of the white television set in my host family’s living room.

Reviewing this time in my life, I get that this was probably very strange behaviour for a teenager and, from the looks of it, I was certainly not “actively integrating”. So I learned to knit and inevitably I began to enjoy Herz zu Herz while knitting. I was and am not talented at handcrafts but, in my mind, I was now “integrating” and had solved the “active integration” issues. My host mother taught me to knit. 

She was a kind woman. In fact, the whole family was kind. The problem was that I came from a dysfunctional family and I was, in a very non savvy way, looking for a new family. Of course, now I understand that I am autistic (late diagnosis) and I can see where my habitual manner and way of viewing issues was compounding the problems. In short, I was harmless but odd, sitting on the couch knitting and watching American shows on German television. Just like the other people living under the same roof. But somehow, the plan was not working and I felt that I still wasn’t “fitting in”.

Researching for my trip to Aachen I read online that “Aachen is best for one day”. This was utter rubbish advice. Aachen can be done in one day, if you don’t know much about history and don’t care to learn more. I booked four nights in the city center. I started out by rising at 6 am on the first morning and attending the 7 am mass at the cathedral. First impression: a handful of nuns and not the hoards of tourists talking loudly and trying to burn the place down by lighting too many candles. By the end of the first day, I felt that I had scratched the surface and, seeing the door to St. Foillan standing open, I stepped inside. I had read online that the church was not of great interest.

Yet it was of great interest. When I first came to Germany, the country I visited was West Germany and the Second World War had ended less than forty years previously. The transition from a vanquished nation into a successful and booming economy was at its apex. Although I am astounded at the city center of Aachen and how much of the city has either survived or been reconstructed, I am also well aware that most of the destruction and damage by the bombings is permanent. Only half of St. Foillan’s pillars survived the war. The other row of pillars was replaced. 

Sitting in the church, it smelled to me of 1984. To be sure, the church was rebuilt and modernized in the late fifties. But in 1984 the aura of the renewing, revamping, and forging an alternate world identity was very palpable. I sense that this post war concept is now fading. It’s a pity that the tourist industry dismisses St. Foillan as “not interesting”.  

On day two in Aachen I decided to walk further out of the center and found myself on the main (post WWII)  shopping street. The kind of shopping street I enjoyed in 1984 and its type is still present despite the post pandemic woes. In 1984 I could buy cheap leather shoes that came from Hungary. I still look for them even though there’s not a leather shoe to be found in the discount stores. Only plastic sneakers. So I walked down Aachen’s high street thinking about buying pink and white leather kitten heels, like I once did in 1984 for less than twenty D-Mark. Humoring myself and tapping into a little whimsical daydreaming, I nearly transported myself back in time.

Returning to 2025 and having bought a “six for fourteen” museum card, I naturally decided to attempt to see at least half of the six of the museums for my fourteen euros within a few hours of purchase. And planned the remaining half for the next day. After the Charlemagne Center and the Couven Museum, I entered the Suermondt-Ludwig museum. I had zero expectations. The place was huge, full of actual works of art and greatly devoid of visitors which astonished me. After the past years battling my way through any museum now overrun by well intentioned and bored tourists, the experience was, once again, like stepping back into 1984. 

Side note: Even the drunks, falling into the bushes, are “merely” tanked up on alcohol in Aachen. How old fashioned is that?

Somewhere while on the regional train from Cologne to Aachen, I began to get the feeling of commuting to a lost empire or trespassing into an armpit-like corner of the world. Either. Or. But no matter what, Aachen is a fascinating place to spend a few days in, on and off the beaten track. Will I make it to the Lindt factory? Probably not.  But I did see Margaret of York’s coronet at the Treasury and admired a 1950’s cocktail pricker set at the Oxfam store.