Excursion to Aachen

This past Thursday we went to Aachen! Unfortunately the day started out with a lot of traffic because there was a transportation strike but it thankfully didn’t really affect our trip. Once we had fought through the traffic, we arrived at the Institute of Applied Medical Engineering at Aachen University. We first met one of the engineers in the cardiovascular unit who gave a lecture over the university and the different topics of research done there. They are working on some pretty cool stuff so I was excited when we got to go down to the labs and learn even more about their research. Some of the cool things we got to see were their artificial heart design and blood lab, but all of it was really interesting! We then went to the Aachen city center for lunch. A few of us went to a Spanish restaurant to get some yummy paella and then met back up with the group in front of the Aachen Cathedral. From there we got a tour of the treasury in the church and then of the cathedral itself. The treasury had some really cool pieces, one of which was Charlemagne’s sarcophagus. The cathedral was also beautiful and I found it super interesting that Charlemagne himself was in charge of the building of the church. We then got to walk around Aachen a little before heading back to Bonn. The city center was really cute and filled with chocolate shops which made it that much better. This short excursion was great and I would love to go back again!

One of the pieces in the treasury

Aachen Cathedral