stadtaachen

The city centre

Aachen’s city centre is young. Its 40,000 students live, learn and study right in the middle of the city – and are getting more and more enthusiastic about it. Right next to the university district is Pontviertel, an area containing student (low-cost) restaurants, mini-theatre, cinemas and student flats. A few metres further is the historic old town with the famous market square, cathedral, city hall and the Elisengarten park where events take place all year round. Whether “September Special” or the Christmas market, life is good here whatever the season. The traffic-calmed city centre is a very inviting place to shop with ease in and around the streets of Adalbertstraße, Dahmengraben, Großkölnstraße and Elisengalerie. Annastraße and Jakobstraße feature small, sought-after shops and boutiques. Older Öcher, too, value the special mélange of modern “hip” and living history. Put simply, Aachen city centre offers city slickers everything they love: theatre, cinema, restaurants, events, the seriously traditional and the seriously way-out – plus affordable accommodation into the bargain. And not forgetting stuff you just can’t get anywhere else: hot springs and gingerbread “Printen” bakeries. There’s not much room left for parking spaces, but who needs them in a city where everything’s a mere hop and a jump away? A distance away from the city centre is Lousberg district. Bordering Europe’s first civic park, and affording excellent views plus great countryside and in a central location close to the university district, these restored detached residences – once lived in by the city’s founding fathers – are now home to professors and the “Who’s Who” of Aachen society. Lots of old trees offer shade in the summer, especially when the student “Lousberg Run” draws the crowds.

Frankenberger Viertel district

Refurbished old houses with creaking floorboards, cafés frequented by left-wing socialists, students, the bourgeois middle classes and mothers; pubs where revolutions were planned in the 70’s which people still love to look back on; good, cheap restaurants and bars, a fortified castle, a park, the Musikbunker with big-name concerts and offering bands oodles of space for practice rooms; a weekly market, galleries, boutiques and playgrounds: Hamburg has its “Schanze”, Berlin its “Prenzlauer Berg” district and Aachen its “Frankenberger Viertel”. It is truly something special. Being close to the city centre, the politicians wanted to make parking spaces for the locals, as elsewhere. But the local residents went up in arms. Today, Frankenberger Viertel is the district with no residents’ parking. In a somewhat alternative and rather loveable way, the locals have created a very private nirvana for themselves and put up with troublesome parking and rising rents as a price well paid.

The Eastern and Northern districts

Some districts you either love or hate. Aachen’s Eastern and Northern districts (Ostviertel and Nordviertel) are honest, down-to-earth places. On Elsassstraße and Adalbertsteinweg you’ll find tasty, value-for-money Oriental cuisine. Night-owls will never be without a newsagent’s or a kebab house at any hour. Big apartments in old buildings are affordable and close to the action. The boundaries with Frankenberger Viertel, Haaren and the city centre district are hard to define. Many nationalities live cheek-by-jowl here in harmony, and each year the Kennedypark is where you can let it all hang out at the “Multikultifest”. Even the dyed-in-the-wool Aacheners feel at home in the Nordviertel and the Ostviertel – and have done so for generations. This is where you’ll hear the finest sayings in our local dialect, “Öcher Platt”, this is where you’ll find Aachen’s most “happening” ice cream parlour, the loveliest cemetery and the Ludwig Forum for International Art. The Nordviertel and Ostviertel are where, after an all-night party, you can get your morning bread rolls without the neighbours gossiping. Because it’s other things that are important in life – like how Alemannia did in the football match. People who move here tend to stay. There’s simply nowhere more uncomplicated, more relaxed and more entertaining as the northern and eastern part of Aachen.

Burtscheid

People in this district are Burtscheiders first and Aacheners second, and take great pride in the fact. This self-confidence is more than a coincidence, because this district is home to the very soul of Aachen Spa. It’s got healing springs, recuperation clinics and even a fountain where you can still taste the hot spring water. As a mini spa-town, Burtscheid is also blessed with excellent infrastructure featuring a pedestrian precinct, nice cafés and little shops offering personal attention. The spa gardens play host to concerts and events, and there’s a market each Friday, and the local medieval festival (Bänkeltage) and festival of lights draw even Aacheners in – after all, there’s a great bus service to and from the city centre. Aachen Forest, close by, is a paradise for joggers, nature lovers and perfect for family outings. And when the little ones grow up, Aachen University of Applied Sciences means they can don’t have to leave for university.

The Southern district

Aachen’s only open-air swimming pool can be found in this mature, charming district. The planetarium draws sky-gazers, and the allotments attract gardening fans. The city is close by, with the centre within easy walking distance. There’s free parking, and the kids can run wild on the grass areas. The Waldorf school stands on the site of the old medical hospital, and the beautiful detached houses are a feast for the eyes. This is where you’ll find renovated flats which are a bit out of the ordinary – not overly cheap, but sought-after for that very reason.

Laurensberg (incl. Vetschau, Orsbach, Soers, Vaalserquartier, Melaten and Gut Kullen)

In Aachen’s north-west, and therefore within striking distance of the new RWTH Aachen Campus, lies the popular district of Laurensberg which stretches from Vaalserquartier on the Dutch border to the foot of Lousberg hill, the city’s highest point which attracts not just walkers and joggers but starry-eyed couples as well. In Laurensberg the people have a flexible, mobile, cosmopolitan approach to life. Soers, a very posh (albeit small) residential area, also includes the Tivoli ground, home to German League Division 2 football club Alemannia Aachen. Once per year, for a period of ten days, Soers witnesses more people than the weekly football fans, because that’s when the world equestrian event “CHIO” draws the crowds. People who live here can get onto the A44 motorway quickly and can be in Cologne, Heerlen or Maastricht in no time. Residents of Vaalserquartier live, figuratively speaking, with one foot in the Netherlands, given that the border is just a stone’s throw away, and have the convergence of three national borders (Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands) on their doorsteps. Aachen city centre, too, is not far away. People looking for a more countrified lifestyle will find Vetschau and Orsbach irresistible with their cows, horses, fields and farms. A little further on, at Melaten, is Aachen’s only golf course, and Gut Kullen is home to people from over 90 nations (leading to the local saying that Gut Kullen is a miniature version of the United Nations). People live together in a spirit of openness and tolerance – no wonder, since the boundary of Laurensberg looks like an angel on the map. With their motto “Unity through Variety”, Laurensbergers are rightly proud of their district which, like an angel, unites the variety of opposites and differences into an unmistakeable harmonious whole.

Richterich & Horbach

Richterich is home to Aachen’s oldest stately home, and Horbach has the moated castle “Haus Heyden”. Richterichers have the benefit of being able to travel quickly to Aachen and Herzogenrath, and to the Netherlands too. This is a children-friendly place to be, the traffic is still light, and there are no anonymous housing estates. All around, fields are just waiting to be walked or cycled in. The countrified part, Horbach, is further away from the city centre, but an express bus service means you can be downtown quickly. Horbachers take pride in their identity, and the district has mainly detached homes built on what are still generous plots.

Haaren, Verlautenheide & Eilendorf

Outside the city, but still an Aachener – sums up what you could expect if you decide to move to one of these districts. Being outside the city, rents and house prices are well below those in the city centre, and you can be downtown quickly by bus if you want. Verlautenheide has all the important shops for everyday needs, and the shopping facilities of nearby Würselen are just the other side of the “Aachener Kreuz” motorway intersection. Aachen Forest is also close by. In Haaren, new housing estates blend easily with mature features, and you’ll find florists, clothes shops, corner shops and solariums on Main Street, as well as being able to get to the city centre quickly via Jülicher Straße. With twelve playgrounds, Eilendorf is hard to beat. This district is where old houses and new houses blend to perfection. Eilendorf is a mature district. This may be why clubs and societies do well here: scouts, a gardening society, a local historical society, several carnival societies, the ecumenical senior citizens’ group, music and choral societies, men’s social clubs, sports clubs and animal breeders’ associations.

Brand

Brand is a little village in its own right, situated at the country end of Triererstraße on the way towards the Eifel hills. The civic pride of the people of Brand is personified by the bull that graces their coat of arms – eternalised on the Market Square and enjoying listed-building protection – and the Brand Bulls march at carnival time in one of the biggest local parades. Families feel at home in Brand – new houses and flats merge comfortably with the district’s mature old buildings. The woods are not far away, and local shopping facilities and a host of service businesses are on hand for daily needs.

Kornelimünster & Walheim

These districts have retained their village charm. They border the northern-most part of the Eifel foothills and are Aachen’s most southerly districts. Anyone who enjoys natural surroundings, peace and quiet and the ability to feel on holiday without leaving home will find many places here to call his or her own. Kornelimünster and Walheim are located in Aachen’s oldest area of outstanding natural beauty, the “Klauserwäldchen” woods. Family life in Walheim is wonderful, with its own kindergartens, a nice leisure park complete with barbecue area and excellent retail facilities – and family homes are within the reach of even modest budgets. Shopping on “Prämienstraße”, Walheimers can find all the nice things in life – a mere 5 miles from the village of Roetgen in the Eifel foothills.
Kornelimünster is somewhere every Aachener goes at least once a year, because this is where the historic annual market is held. The setting is simply stunning: pretty churches, old civic buildings and a former monastery grace this idyllic village, rich in history. A stream, the “Inde”, trickles comfortingly through the old quarter. Kornelimünster has restaurants people talk about, as well as an ice cream parlour much enjoyed by cyclists. An especially rich feature is the abbey in the former Benedictine monastery being, as it is, it is in possession of Christ’s loincloth, shroud and sudarium – and today the facility also houses a collection of modern art from the local province of North-Rhine Westphalia.