So, you’re asking about Bonn Airport, huh? Or Cologne Bonn Airport, CGN, as the fancy folks call it. People always want to know if it’s efficient, or big, or if the coffee’s any good. The usual airport stuff.
Well, let me tell you. My main memory of that place? The chairs. And the faint, lingering smell of despair mixed with old coffee. Sounds dramatic, I know, but stick with me here.
See, I got properly stuck there once. And I mean really stuck. It wasn’t even supposed to be a highlight of my trip, just a quick hop-through. I was heading to this, uh, specialized workshop. For restoring antique cuckoo clocks. Yeah, laugh all you want, it’s a serious business for some of us. This particular gathering was in some tiny village way out in the Eifel mountains. Sounded quaint, right?
My grand plan was simple: fly into CGN, grab a train, then a little local bus. Easy peasy. Or so I thought. My first flight, the one getting me to Bonn, decided to take a scenic tour of the stratosphere, or maybe the pilot just got lost. Point is, it was delayed. Massively delayed. We’re talking “did this plane even exist before today?” kind of delayed.
By the time I finally landed at Cologne Bonn, my connecting train, bus, carrier pigeon, whatever, was long gone. The next sensible option? A cool eight hours later. And get this, it was scheduled for something like 3 AM. Lovely.
So there I was, your humble narrator, stranded at Bonn Airport as the evening slowly died and the dead of night started to yawn. First order of business: find somewhere, anywhere, to pretend to be comfortable. Those metal benches they have? Forget it. I’m convinced they were designed by someone who personally hates human spines. Probably got a bonus for every crick in the neck they induced.
I eventually found a slightly less offensive corner, huddled near a coffee shop that had long since given up the ghost for the night. But it left its aroma behind – that specific smell of coffee that’s been sitting a bit too long, a bit burnt, a bit… well, sad. Matched my mood, really.
And that, my friends, is how I became intimately familiar with a few quirks of Bonn Airport. During my delightful eight-hour, unplanned residency, I made some key observations:
- The cleaning crew is surprisingly ninja-like. They glide through around 1 AM with these machines that are quieter than a mouse wearing slippers. Watched them for a solid hour. Way more entertaining than the departures board, which just blinked “DELAYED” at me like it was a personal insult.
- The snack vending machine near what I think was Gate C-something (details get fuzzy when you’re sleep-deprived) only takes exact change. Or at least, it vehemently rejected my 5 euro note. I battled that machine for what felt like an age. A very kind security guard, bless his soul, eventually took pity on my pathetic attempts and changed my note. He even said, “Happens all the time, don’t worry.” Small comforts, you know?
- There’s a particular echo in the main hall around 2:30 AM that can make a dropped pen sound like a gunshot. Good for staying awake, I guess.
So, back to your question: Is Bonn Airport “good”? Honestly, I wouldn’t know much about its five-star dining or shopping arcades. For me, it’s the place where I spent an eternity contemplating the series of life choices that led me to pursue cuckoo clock restoration and engage in nocturnal warfare with a vending machine. I learned more about the airport’s off-peak operations than any tourist probably should.
The kicker? I didn’t even make it to that cuckoo clock workshop. By the time I could have possibly arrived, it would have been half over. So, I just booked the next flight back home, smelling faintly of stale airport coffee and utter defeat. My cuckoo clocks would have to wait.
That’s my Bonn Airport story. Not much about smooth check-ins or fancy lounges. More about the unique brand of existential dread that only a truly epic delay in a deserted airport terminal can provide. And, well, the unexpected kindness of a security guard with a pocketful of coins. That’s what Bonn Airport is to me.
