Did you have ever have been to Bielefeld? If so better forget it and try to prove that this town does not exist. High reward: "German city offers €1 million prize to prove conspiracy theory it doesn't exist" (article).
For the others: may be spend a night there on your journey and explore a town off the beaten paths.
Oh no. We lived in Bielefeld in 1990 for 6 months before it “didn’t exist”. I was surprised to find out there was a town of >300,000 people in Germany I’d never heard of and we were moving there.
Shhhh their secret is safe with me. Hardly any outside tour groups know about it to this day. If you find yourself visiting Bielefeld though and want to explore some interesting places in and around the city there is a castle, zoo, forest trails, beautiful old town, Dr Oetker train station and spice factory and art museum. It’s historical fame and wealth were in linen weaving and some factories still exist, we have friends who were part of this legacy.
My absolute favorite nearby towns were Detmold and Lemgo.
Thanks for the pleasant memories, or maybe it was a dream...
I was surprised to find out there was a town of >300,000 people in
Germany I’d never heard of
We'd probably all be surprised to find out how many towns of >1,000,000 people there are in China that we've never heard of. :-)
Hardly any outside tour groups know about it to this day.
Know about what? ;-)
there is a castle, zoo, forest trails, beautiful old town, Dr Oetker
train station and spice factory and art museum.
... and the very notable charitable Bethel Foundation for people with epilepsy whose director resisted when the Nazis wanted to kill all the patients.
Anna thank you for the link to the Bethel Foundation information. I passed by this complex near the castle many times but did not know about its history.
Yes, it does have a remarkable history, and I don't think the Wikipedia article does it justice as far as its present is concerned.
For instance, practically all Northern German church congregations participate in their second-hand clothing drives. It's important to us to know that our still-wearable clothing won't go right into some shredder or ruin employment for people in Africa by dumping cheap clothing on their markets. We know that in Bethel it is being used quite on the contrary to create employment for many of the long-term patients who sort out the clothing and supply their big second-hand store. Here, again, the patients (and anyone else) benefit by being able to find affordable clothing.
Would be too bad if that didn't exist. :-)
Admittedly I went to Bielefeld once. That was in 1973, I was staying in Osnabrück and decided to go to Bielefeld for dinner. Other than that I have only been on train routes where Bielefeld was one of their stops.
I was in Detmold once too, in 1984, went to see the "Hermannsdenkmal" and a bit of the town as a day trip from Bad Sassendorf.
I see that we miss a relevant part of history here relating Bielefeld ;-)
Soccer team Arminia Bielefeld was paying money to other teams so they can win games and stay in league. Also pros from Hertha BSC were accepting this offering - still a shame. For German first soccer league (today Bundesliga) that was a scandale - and maybe a reason why some soccer fans erased Bielefeld from their inner sports map of Germany.
"German city offers €1 million prize to prove conspiracy theory it
doesn't exist"
Dr. Oetker is adding 1 million sachets of instant pudding to the prize!
