Oh, I'm so jealous! I spent a summer in Bonn studying German years ago. I even got to meet Gerhard Schroeder. Well, we didn't exactly meet personally. My class was touring the council buildings and he walked by and said, "Guten Morgen" to the whole group of us. It was while they were in the process of moving the capital back to Berlin, so quite an interesting time.

I don't know much about heathen sites in the area. There are some old Roman ruins. And even a non-Christian has to impressed by the Kolner Dom. We took the train and I remember riding up the escalator to ground level and looking up and it was just amazingly huge. By far, most tourist attractions have a Christian bent, and specifically Lutheran, since the Diet of Wurms isn't far. Let's see what else... I remember seeing Escher's house, but I forget what town it was. Then, there is plenty of history of WWII. There is a great museum in Bonn that covers the rise of Hitler to the time of the split and Communist control of the East to the present. I also went to Dachau, which is a lovely medival town, despite the notorious concentration camp. The greatest story is that the gas chamber there never worked. They kept bringing in engineers who promised they fixed it, but it never worked. I'm always impressed by the stories of passive resistance.

Oh, and of course, there is the beer! If you go to Koln, you have to drink a Kolsch. There's another funny story. Did you ever hear about the JFK speech when he said, "Ich bin ein Berliner." He was trying to say I'm a Berliner, but the way he said it translates literally as "I am a donut." So, Bill Clinton was in Koln around the time of my visit and announced, "Ich bin ein Kolsch," which translates as "I am a beer from Koln." Each town makes their own brew. Germany and Czech Republic are the only places I'll go and just order "a beer" since I trust that the local brew is going to be good.

Sorry if I'm rambling. I miss my time in Europe. I can't wait to go back again someday soon! Have a great time and keep us posted on your trip.

Heill Birka,
I particularly loved their quaint dated 60s retro Düsseldorf Trams :-) Not exactly Vorsprung durch Technic (German Vorsprung "advantage, lead, leading edge, start, head start" + durch "through" + Technik "technology)

www.veoh.com/videos/v6409389Fdrrb6zg

Best
Rig

Heill Birka,
Was remis of me not to address your original post question. When I was in Germany, what I experienced regarding heathenry was disappointingly way too neo-pagan for my liking with a wiccan/chaos/new age overview. It seems Germany has its share of eclectics also.
However I would certainly recommend that you take a look at the Neanderthal Museum near Düsseldorf:

www.neanderthal.de/

The first Neanderthal skull was discovered in Gibraltar in 1848. Eight years later the “original” Neanderthal man was discovered in a limestone quarry in the Neander Valley near Düsseldorf in Germany (“Neanderthal” literally means “Neander’s Valley”). The Neander Valley in turn was named after Joachim Neander, a 17th century German theologian who taught Latin in nearby Düsseldorf and preached sermons in the valley which later came to bear his name. Three years after the Neander Valley discovery, Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species in which he proposed that all life descended from a common ancestor. This includes humans who were thought to have evolved from some sort of ape-like ancestor. The Neanderthal man was subsequently reinterpreted by the scientists of the 19th century who came to see him as a sort of ape-man, an evolutionary link between man and ape. This view persisted into the 20th century.

Best
Rig