ANTJE Zimmermann was late. Her flight from Cologne was delayed on take-off by snow. So as I waited at Abode Hotel, I ate an astonishingly good fish and chips provided by chef Bryn Evans at the MC Bar and Grill (click here).
Antje arrived smiling and apologetic.
She went to her room to get rid of her stuff before we went on the tour. Shortly after she re-appeared, flustered.
"I need air," she said. "The rooms are like a sauna, and the window cannot open. Germans need fresh air."
We all do of course.
But there was a German aspect to this.
There is a cult of fresh air and bodily and mental health over the Rhine. The end point of this is the German passion for naturism with nudist areas as standard in many German parks. It's impossible to imagine such areas in UK parks. Heaton Park Nudist Meadow simply sounds disturbing.
This part of German character is underwritten by a philosophy from the late nineteenth and twentieth century of 'lebensreform' that promoted a back to nature lifestyle and as well as naturism, recommended health foods, sexual liberation and alternative medicines.
It is still very much at the heart of liberal German thought, and Antje was simply articulating 'lebensreform' when she desired fresh air.
Fortunately the hotel was very obliging and found Antje a room with windows that opened. There was talk of having to get the handyman out to unscrew one of the old sashes. The Abode Hotel is big, bold and Baroque, a former Horrocks and Crewdson warehouse from 1899 by Manchester architect Charles Heathcote.
This means it's a Grade II listed building and there are rules about keeping original features such as sash windows which can be difficult to maintain.
At least Abode could find rooms with windows that open, many controlled environment hotels in the UK have windows that don't. Do all the hotels, including tall modern ones, in Germany have windows that open?
The tour included an interview between Antje and me in The Royal Exchange. On the tour she particularly adored Affleck’s with its four floors of crazy boutiques, collectables, furniture, fancy dress. She nobbled one of the stall holders for an interview.
We finished off in the Radisson Edwardian Hotel where she asked more questions about Manchester and its politics and traditions and drank a glass of wine. She felt Manchester had a similar liberal air as Cologne, her home town. She showed me pictures of a theatre group she's part of, that during Cologne’s carnival put furry animal masks on and perform dances.
The woman is a traveller almost without parallel in my experience. For her radio programme - and I think I heard this right - she is away from home during at least part of three weeks out of every four. Wow. No wonder she needs hotel rooms to be right.
Sat behind her in the bar was Ryan Giggs, 39, and still going strong in the Manchester United first team. Antje didn’t like football and so had no idea who one of the most famous footballers on the planet with a face known to millions was.
This was refreshing given football's global over exposure.
It was also probably refreshing for Mr G who for once didn’t have some footy fanatic sticking a camera phone in his face and asking for an autograph while he was simply enjoying a quiet drink with his missus.
Antje arrived smiling and apologetic.
She went to her room to get rid of her stuff before we went on the tour. Shortly after she re-appeared, flustered.
"I need air," she said. "The rooms are like a sauna, and the window cannot open. Germans need fresh air."
We all do of course.
But there was a German aspect to this.
There is a cult of fresh air and bodily and mental health over the Rhine. The end point of this is the German passion for naturism with nudist areas as standard in many German parks. It's impossible to imagine such areas in UK parks. Heaton Park Nudist Meadow simply sounds disturbing.
This part of German character is underwritten by a philosophy from the late nineteenth and twentieth century of 'lebensreform' that promoted a back to nature lifestyle and as well as naturism, recommended health foods, sexual liberation and alternative medicines.
It is still very much at the heart of liberal German thought, and Antje was simply articulating 'lebensreform' when she desired fresh air.
Fortunately the hotel was very obliging and found Antje a room with windows that opened. There was talk of having to get the handyman out to unscrew one of the old sashes. The Abode Hotel is big, bold and Baroque, a former Horrocks and Crewdson warehouse from 1899 by Manchester architect Charles Heathcote.
This means it's a Grade II listed building and there are rules about keeping original features such as sash windows which can be difficult to maintain.
At least Abode could find rooms with windows that open, many controlled environment hotels in the UK have windows that don't. Do all the hotels, including tall modern ones, in Germany have windows that open?
The tour included an interview between Antje and me in The Royal Exchange. On the tour she particularly adored Affleck’s with its four floors of crazy boutiques, collectables, furniture, fancy dress. She nobbled one of the stall holders for an interview.
We finished off in the Radisson Edwardian Hotel where she asked more questions about Manchester and its politics and traditions and drank a glass of wine. She felt Manchester had a similar liberal air as Cologne, her home town. She showed me pictures of a theatre group she's part of, that during Cologne’s carnival put furry animal masks on and perform dances.
The woman is a traveller almost without parallel in my experience. For her radio programme - and I think I heard this right - she is away from home during at least part of three weeks out of every four. Wow. No wonder she needs hotel rooms to be right.
Sat behind her in the bar was Ryan Giggs, 39, and still going strong in the Manchester United first team. Antje didn’t like football and so had no idea who one of the most famous footballers on the planet with a face known to millions was.
This was refreshing given football's global over exposure.
It was also probably refreshing for Mr G who for once didn’t have some footy fanatic sticking a camera phone in his face and asking for an autograph while he was simply enjoying a quiet drink with his missus.
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