A trip to Germany

The view from the Maritim Bonn, originally uploaded by electrolyte2006.

I've been really busy with work this last week and a bit. Last week I was at a conference in Germany for the whole week and today I am off to Hatfield for another conference which will last until Tuesday. So I've not had many chances for photography.

I did get a chance once we got to Germany and our hotel. I noticed that the view from my hotel room's balcony was quite nice with the sun setting so I grabbed a few shots with a view to stitching them together. And this is the main photo at the top of this post.

I have to say that the view was one of the only things that was good about the hotel we were staying in. We stayed in the Maritim Bonn hotel in, surprisingly enough, Bonn. If you like mirrored ceilings, lots of gold trim, masses of fake chandeliers, cheesy musak everywhere, a general feel of 1982 everywhere and, worst of all, nothing at all in the immediate vicinity to escape to you will love the Maritim. Unless you are Peter Stringfellow you won't like this hotel and I certainly am not. It was awful.

The only 2 saving graces of the hotel was the lovely beer on tap at the bar - but great beer is available everywhere in Germany so this doesn't count - and the extremely cheesy piano player who played each night in the bar. He was a man in his 50s who played a variety of songs on the piano while singing in a Vic Reeves club style to a bontempi style backing track. Ritchie. John, Michael, Collins, Presley and Sinartra were just some of the original artists he murdered with his singing. Great fun for 30 minutes but by the 3rd night of this the joke had certainly worn thin.

So, as if you couldn't guess, I didn't enjoy my stay at the Maritim. Thankfully, about 30 minutes walk away was the Rhine and a lovely bar by the river. A much nicer place. Shame they didn't do rooms or I would have been tempted to move there.

Anyway, enough of this rant. Hopefully my trip to Hatfield will be better. But we are staying in university halls on this trip so the signs aren't good.....