Even prior to arriving at Erzurum, I could already see how severe and harsh winter in this part of Turkey is. The bus from Diyarbakir to Erzurum via Bingol and Karliova had to stop en route and deploy the snow chains before crossing the mountain pass at Cat because of the heavy snowfall. All along the way, numerous cars and trucks were forced to stop at the roadside due to poor visibility and heavy snowfall. When the bus arrived at Erzurum's main intercity bus station, the temperature outside was already at -14 degrees Celsius, and it was so cold, it just makes you want to escape into the nearest heated room available as soon as you can. Usually I choose to use the free shuttle service provided by the bus company whenever posssible, but in such extreme temperature, I give up on my principles and decided to dish out 10TL and take a taxi to the hotel, instead of utilising the bus company's free shuttle service to the city centre. Germany is famous for its beer, but not all beers are brewed the same. And each town or even village in Germany has its own beer(s), with an individual flavour and one-of-a-kind taste unique to the place. The beer produced in one particular village in northern Germany will taste completely different to the beer brewed in a mountain village somewhere in the Alps. For beer lovers, any trip to Freiburg, the university town in southern Baden, is incomplete with a visit to the private brewery known affectionately by locals as Feierling. This place serves arguably one of the best home brewed beers in southern Germany, and is a popular meeting place for residents of the university town as well as incoming visitors. Me and my classmates used to hold our weekly Stammtisch gathering at this place, and whenever friends came to visit, Feierling is always an integral part of the city tour programme around Freiburg and the environs. The main attraction of Feierling is the in-house brewery with two giant brass beer vats in the centre of the building, which also houses a restaurant. During my student days in Freiburg, this place is the regular meeting point of fellow students after seminars, and its outdoor beer garden, under the chestnut trees with gravel ground, provides the ideal set-up for some mind-provoking post-seminar intellectual discussions - an experience which makes life in a German university town so special compared to other university towns in other European countries. During the 1990s, I used to visit Strasbourg on a frequent basis, as the city is about 2 hours by train from Freiburg, where I used to live. Beside being a pretty city with an impressive cathedral, picturesque old town with scenic medieval timber framed houses, Strasbourg also offers good shopping opportunities, with many French supermarkets, French departmental stores stocked with French clothing labels available only in France proper, and high-end haute-couture boutiques which make my knees go weak and my bank accounts empty during its summer sales and winter sales periods. Sometimes I even went to Strasbourg with an empty suitcase, only to return with it filled to the brim with French delicatessen and fashion booty from the latest sales in town. I remember very well that, during my first semester as a freshman undergraduate at the university, the topic of my very first lecture in Early Modern European History was about the 'Diet of Worms'. At first the name 'Worms' sounds really funny, for it reminds one of the crawling non-arthropod invertebrate creatures, instead of an important imperial Holy Roman Empire city and a strategic stronghold of a place on the bank of the River Rhine. But this city actually witnessed some of the most decisive moments in the history of modern Europe, and is in contention with Trier and Cologne to vie for the title of the oldest city in Germany. The city of Worms is best known in Germany for the following few things: the place where the 1521 Diet of Worms, at which Martin Luther was summoned to appear before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to recant or to defend his 95 These, took place; as the backdrop of the medieval epic saga Das Nibelungenlied; and the city where some of the most famous Romanesque architectures from the early Middle Ages can be seen.

• published: 12 Jul 2014
• views: 1