Is there a point to twin towns? The signs are all over the country, so why not visit the town you are twinned with – it might be the start of a beautiful friendship... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/30/is-there-a-point-to-twin-towns
Posted by
OP
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2779 posts
Here's a list of US-German city partnerships. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_deutsch-amerikanischer_St%C3%A4dtepartnerschaften
Posted by
Corvallis OR
7119 posts
What a great idea! Never heard of twin towns, here we call them "sister cities". I just found out that one of Denver's sister cities is Brest, France and I'm going to be there this summer. Way cool!
Posted by
Land of La
9092 posts
Great idea!!! The City of Angels has 25 sister cities and 3 Friendship cities. Vast array of choices from Mumabi to Kaunas to Auckland to Berlin to Manchester to Split to Tehran to.....oh my.
Posted by
Vernon, Canada
32322 posts
Andreas, Visiting our "sister cities" is actually something I started thinking about two years ago. I've been working out the details to visit our sister city in Italy, but it's a bit "off the beaten" track so I wasn't to work it into my Itinerary this year. Our local government has a "Sister City Committee", so I might tag along with them next time they make a visit. We have sister cities in the U.S., Japan, Austria, Italy and one in Quebec. At this point, I'm only interested in visiting the European ones.
Posted by
Stuttgart, Germany
3050 posts
Just heard a thing on the public radio show "PRI's The World" about how Boring, Oregon, is now the sister city of Dull, Scotland. Everyone was very cheeky about the partnership. I think this is a great idea.
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
33465 posts
Yes, it was in the paper here last week that they are now dull and boring.
Posted by
Frankfurt, Germany
9145 posts
The point of it is to get you to go some place that might NOT be in the regular guide books, to get you to do a bit of research on just why this is the partner or twin city of your hometown. http://www.frankfurt.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=317587 Some places offer special deals to tourists that are visiting from their partner cities. For example in Frankfurt, this is what you can do if you are from one of their partner cities. Free entry into the following: Ice Skating rink Goethe-Haus Emperors Hall in the Römer All city owned museums Palmengarten Senckenburg Museum Cheaper tickets ahead of time to shows at the Alte Oper, if you let them know 1-2 days ahead of time.
Posted by
OP
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2779 posts
While I can clearly understand what Frankfurt has in common with Toronto (among others both are not stereotypical for their resp. countries, much more open-minded, multi-cultural etc.) and Lyon and Dubai (always No. 2, never No. 1 in their resp. countries) and maybe even with Tel Aviv (capital of the country's economy?) I'm having a harder time seeing our similarities with Prague (apart from being situated on both sides of a river)... But without even knowing I've already been to 7 of our twin cities... What does it do for me? Nothing. It's just interesting. Why would you change your travel plans? You wouldn't, you shouldn't.