Bad Zwischenahn Review
The Lake, the oversized plant pots and the jetty to nowhere.
A Lake. And, er, well, a Lake?
This peaceful town is near Oldenburg and Bremen, just under Denmark. Why was I there? I originally meant to drive to Copenhagen but then, well, I couldn’t be arsed. Too far. I traced a line backwards from Denmark on Google Maps, found a lake, clicked a link and well, it looked nice, so I pointed the Beamer back to the Fatherland.
Bad Zwischenahn is a pretty spa town by a large lake. Home of a Luftwaffe base in WW2.
I was the youngest there. I think 75 was the mean age. I was also the only English person in the whole town. In fact, the only non-German and non-German speaker. The shopping mall featured shops selling hearing aids and mobility scooters. A nice line in body warmers and cardigans.
So, I did some walking around the lake area. Struggled to order beer and food and left. And that, my friend, is Bad Zwischenahn.
Clubbing & Wild Nights!
Beers / Food: Restaurant Dänenkroog - best of the bunch. I sat outside reading Robert Graves and texting expensively bak home to la femme au courant. Nice in the sun.
Hotel: Hotel Am Badepark: Okay, not great. Large suite.
Should You Go? It’s very pretty, very ordered, very German. The lake is vast and there are plenty of walks alongside. If this puts mustard on your Frankfurter then, why not?
I’ll not be going back.
Quotidian Notes
Bad Zwischenahn wasn’t that bad. (Yes, I know, I know. Puerile pun.)
This is a micro, micro entry. For others getting the short form treatment read my Micro City Tours.
For more German fun, read my reviews of Aachen - Charlemagne & A Bad Massage and The Hillbillys of Monschau
Luxembourg City - Better Than You Think
Luxembourg City - A Girl, Some Business
Let me start by saying, Luxembourg City is one of my favourite places. I’ve been going there since 1990. Strangely, more times for business than in a personal capacity.
There was a girl once - isn’t there always somewhere? - once who I arranged to meet there. I flew in, it rained, we drank ‘33’ beer in darkened cafes and walked the pretty streets in the rain. It didn’t last.
Luxembourg is the Capitoline Hill of the Rome that is the EU. EU buildings - vast, magnificent - are everywhere on the outskirts of the city. That and favourable tax regimes means that there’s many corporations also in this small principality. Hello Amazon S.R.L. There’s so much money in the country that all public transport is free within its borders which, as a tourist, is welcome.
A Corporate Rogering!
I was summoned to Luxembourg a few years ago as a (then) massive telecommunications company was about to go live with our financial products. Okay. Between me and you, it was Skype. Wankers. Our implementation manager had fucked up and I got handed the global implementation two days before the go live date. A suicide pass. This was on Thursday. I was in Luxembourg the following Monday to take a senior management team beating from the Skype top brass.
Our product was deficient. Our implementation poor. The yawning gap between what they wanted, what they bought, and what we could deliver had never been discussed by my predecessor. I was the nominated corporate fall guy. I flew in and got kicked out of their office and the country the same day.
Glad Skype has disappeared. No corporate product.
Although I’ve been back to Luxembourg on business a few times, I’ve also visited in a personal capacity probably trying to recapture the first time - the rain, the girl, the memory. But you can’t go back, can you? The dead hand of impermanence in time, in places and, most particularly people, will ever win out.
And Luxembourg City?
But the City? Very pretty and clean, built across a wide gorge scarred with medieval ruins of fortifications throughout. The layout is on many levels - there’s a scary free glass lift (the Pfaffenthal Panoramic Elevator) between the upper and lower town which is a must. The people are bewilderingly multi-lingual.
Transport aside though, it is expensive - all those bureaucrats gotta spend those EU funds somewhere! The city’s annual Blues and Jazz Rallye festival in the lower town is well worth visiting. As you walk the festival site, you’ll notice everyone holding fast food and drinking beer from plastic cups and there is no litter. None.
So, I’d go, if I were you. Surprising. And off the tourist map for some reason.
Shit Guide
Hotels: Many. No recollection. Corporate.
Beers: Can’t remember past 1990. ‘33’?
Food: Overpriced. Not an EU corporate expense account. No great meals remembered or, probably, eaten. You need to have a fat corporate (or EU) expense account to get the fine dining experience.
Reader’s Verdict: Ever feel you’ve been cheated? Whatever, read about The Darkness of Bruges. It’s the people, people. It’s not the place, it’s where you’re at. Yeah, I’m pissed.
Quotidian Notes
Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. Shades of New York, New York or just a mouse buggering an elephant?
This is part of my Cities I Forgot series. Cities visited that for one reason or another, escaped my withering pen. The laptop tap tap of contemporaneous experience was never heard. But they deserve a micro-tour guide. Why don’t you try my thoughts on Charlemagne’s capital, Aachen and an uncomfortable massage?
Or, for the full Tim, let’s go with day drinking in Antwerp or my mega series on Prague - The Prague Quintet. It’s moving. Well, it’s the definite guide in seven, count them, parts. Yeah. I know.
Aachen: Me, Charlemagne and Solo Travel
The crowds! The Crowds! Townhall Aachen.
History: So Difficult, yeah?
I went there twice in recent years. Why? Well, why not? Charlemagne’s capital and all that. Who he? Don’t you guys read history? Only the first Holy Roman Emperor (800/814 AD) and King of the united Franks. After his demise, and his King Lear type carve up, we got the Western Europe we know now; France to the West, Germany to the East. But this forgotten - and important - king’s capital was in… Wait for it… Aachen.
Frankly, the ‘Dark Ages’ tend to get ignored in our collective roll call of history which slides centuries by like a bored commuter scrolling through her Instagram on the 7.41 to Victoria. Collective historical wisdom goes something like this: Romans or something, the Tudors, Hitler. Bit of slavery thrown in but the detail is all a bit hazy. The Holy Roman Empire? Wazzat?
But I know. I put in the hours. Accordingly, in Aachen, I did the requisite obeisance by visiting the Cathedral and the Charlemagne Museum (both, btw, are well worth visiting). It’s a compact centre and you’ll have no difficulty finding these two landmarks. Beyond these two, I found Aachen a little underwhelming.
Man on Man Action!
I stayed at the Park Hotel Quellenhof which is a very grand, fin de siècle style building just the right distance outside the medieval city centre. It’s a spa hotel and I fancied a massage. I booked myself in with the glamorous lady at the spa. How you doin’ Fräulein? I was looking forward to this one. My shoulder hurt, blah, blah. No, it really did and it’s well known that attractive females rubbing you down with oil are the best remedy.
So I came back at the appointed time - eager and only two beers down - in my shorts, hotel dressing gown and slippers only to be met by a big hairy bloke called Omar. For fuck’s sake! This is not how it’s supposed to be. He led me into a treatment room and asked me to strip off totally. In turn I asked him to fuck off.
“You not had many massages from a man?” he asked.
(Fuck off!) “No,”
What followed was a butt-clenching €100 hour of torture. I left more tense than I went in.
And that, dear readers, is my short-form anecdote about Aachen.
Aachen Top Tips
Restaurant / Bar Recommendation
Ate quite a few sausages at a fast food restaurant called Hanswurst near the cathedral which I recommend. They serve beer too. (Hansbräu). See the mirror picture above - who’s cooler, the sausage shop or Tim Robson?
Hotel
Park Hotel Quellenhof. Expensive & imposing. You feel either wealthy or an imposter here. The room I had first time - must have been flush - was an extremely large corner room with a great view. I think I was upgraded as I’m tight. I recommend this hotel but also recommend working hard to pay for it.
Attraction
Aachen is very near the Vaalserberg which is the tripoint where Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands meet. Stand on the point and take a picture. “Look, my foot is in Germany and my hand is in Belgium!” Hours of fun.
Further Reading
For more neglected European cities, head to my summary. There’s some jewels (and some dogs) - Dordrecht, The Hague, Luxembourg City etc etc. I go to places the crowds do not. You judge.
For more Germanic trips, try my Squeal Piggie in Monschau article. Found out who has a real pretty mouth. Or dodging the mobility scooters in Bad Zwischenahn.
The Cities I Forgot
The Urban Noir Blanks
I’m catching up on some cities from my recent tours in the last few years that haven’t yet been blogged about. Click on the city of your choice for a brief solo travel overview. Yes, they are being added one by one.
Brussels / Bruxelles
Amsterdam
Utrecht
Dordrecht
The Hague
Gent / Ghent
Why Unwritten?
It’s like a lost regimental flag in some musty provincial town museum listing ancient battle honours: Delft, Antwerp, Bruges, Krakow, Breda, Monschau, Mons, Paris, Honfleur, Chicago, Prague. These are the cities I’ve blogged about on this site. Places where I’ve recently matched my wordsmithery and world-weary eye against the elements, fighting wonky barstools, cobblestones and largely indifferent ladies and subsequently exposed each adventure to the public on this website (Urban Noir Tales).
But are these the complete story of my recent travels, I hear all ten of you ask? Are the cities I’ve reviewed every destination I’ve been to in the last three or four years? No, it is not Mr Xi from China (who mysteriously checks this blog everyday).
So what have I missed out from this scabrous tour of Europe? Which towns didn’t make the callback to join the ensemble cast of the city tours already published? Were their stories less remarkable? The people I met less interesting? The follies de toutes less observable? My failures unfunny?
The Runts of the Litter? No!
Perhaps but no, I usually manage to make a compelling story from the most mundane materials. Clearly there’s no hidden embarrassments too shameful to reveal. I’m always pretty truthful; all events I describe on this blog actually happened and my own pratfalls and missed connections are real. True, like any writer, I’m guilty of crashing events together, editing furiously and leaving out the parts not additive to the main narrative of whatever city I’m writing about.
‘Literary impressionism’ I once called it. Yes, a somewhat pretentious term but that description is an apt one. I aim to entertain and inform. And be pretentious.
They Came Too Soon
The main reason these cities were left out, I guess, is that they came at the wrong time. Maybe I hadn’t yet toned the writing muscle I rediscovered in those rainy afternoons in Delft and Antwerp late spring 2025. Simply, they came slightly too soon for the ‘Urban Noir’ series.
All have stories unwritten in each. Perhaps, given time, given newer, shinier cities, they just got forgotten. What is unwritten is unremembered. There’s nothing so unfamiliar as the recent past. But let’s check out that theory. The stories - and cities - may have short entries but I’ll add the highlights, as I remember them from some distance.
So where to start? Let’s go to Aachen and an uncomfortable massage from Omar.
Quotidian Notes
“Are you scraping so far below the barrel Tim that you’re actually mining? Or has your egotism finally fully taken over in your solipsistic world that you now give us the scraps from your notebooks?” Fair point. Thank you but fuck off. No, some of these untold stories are better than those already published. I have high standards around here.
For example. There’s many a scabrous story in the Dam! If lying on a bed in nightclub being forced to suck on a pipe strapped around a naked guy’s groin is your thing, you might like these new recollections. A lost gem I feel.
The main point is to give travellers (particularly solo travellers) some idea of what a place is like before they get there. An impression. A feeling of what the city is actually like. Maybe some bar reviews. Some practical tips. Muesems. But mainly the bars and the interactions I get into. Or fail to get into.