The small town of Monschau, hidden away in a narrow valley,
benefitted greatly from the wars that plagued Germany in the 17th century.
Today, it benefits greatly from the tourist industry.
The town's history can be traced back to the 12th century,
when the Dukes of Limburg built a castle.
It's first mentioned in 1198 as Mons Ioci,
a name that went through several revisions before finally being germanized in 1918
due to anti-French sentiment after the First World War.
In 1435 the castle fell to the Margrave of Jülich.
About a century later, imperial troops almost destroyed the castle and the town
at the end of the Guelders Wars,
a complicated series of conflicts that started with an unpaid debt
and ended with the Holy Roman Empire taking control of the Low Countries.
But the town's history may go back even further than the castle.
On the opposite hill is a fortification known as the Haller.
It doesn't seem to have been a simple watchtower:
rather, it's now thought to have been an actual castle.
The theory is that there was no room to extend it,
so the Dukes of Limburg built a new castle instead.
It was, however, the textile industry that made Monschau.
But it's surprisingly difficult to find out how this came about.
Sources seem to agree that one of the first textile manufacturers here was Arnold Schmitz.
The usual story is that he was a Protestant
who fled Aachen during the religious conflicts that resulted from the Reformation.
But this now seems doubtful:
apparently, the Schmitz family was in fact local.
What is certain is that Monschau's remote location meant
it escaped the worst of all those armed conflicts of the 17th century,
allowing its textile industry to quietly grow.
The breakthrough came with Johann Heinrich Scheibler.
His family came from near Cologne,
but he'd been an apprentice at the textile factory in nearby Imgenbroich,
then married the daughter of his master
who just happened to be the widow of a textile manufacturer from Monschau.
He set about modernizing the factory
and exporting high-quality fabrics all over Europe and even to Egypt and Persia.
In Monschau, he built the Red House.
The door with the helmet let to his private apartment;
the door with the pelican to his company headquarters.
Today it is, of course, a museum.
Scheibler's brother-in-law Bartholomäus Troistorff had also founded a factory here,
and his son built this villa for himself.
It's now owned by the town
and used for exhibitions, receptions, and civil wedding ceremonies.
The second half of the 18th century was the high point of Monschau's textile industry.
Unfortunately, the remoteness of the town, which had facilitated its growth,
now hampered it, as the Industrial Revolution almost passed it by.
A railway was eventually built in the 1880s, but even that didn't help.
It closed about 100 years later and is now a cycle path —
but one with an unusual status.
Over to the left of me is Germany.
Over to the right is Germany.
But I am in Belgium.
In 1920, as a result of the Versailles Treaty,
the districts of Eupen and Malmedy were ceded to Belgium.
But this left the railway crossing the border several times,
and so the following year the line and the stations were also handed over to Belgium.
And to this day the path remains on Belgian soil.
Now, you may wonder what's the big deal.
After all, both Germany and Belgium are Schengen Area states,
so it's not as if you need a passport or anything just to cycle or walk along here.
But it is a big deal if you have an accident.
Call the emergency number, and you'll almost certainly get through to a German dispatcher
who will have to pass on your message to a German-speaking dispatcher in Belgium.
To help them, signs at regular intervals carry information
to pinpoint the exact location.
German paramedics will probably be first on the scene,
but the German police won't be allowed to do anything.
That's complicated enough as it is.
But things get even more complicated if somebody decides to sue.
If all the participants are German citizens, then German civil law applies.
In all other cases, the only advice anyone can give you
is find a lawyer who specializes in international law.
Fortunately for Monschau, it narrowly escaped destruction
as US troops advanced into Germany in 1944:
they were able to take the town without much of a fight.
And so it was preserved to become a popular tourist destination.
You may have noticed in the video that I was extremely unlucky with the weather.
In fact, one of the most irritating aspects of my visit
was all the locals telling me I should have been there the previous day.
Fair warning though: even on a rainy day at the tail end of the season
the place was full of tourists.
As I hinted, Monschau has no train station,
but it does have a regular bus service from Aachen.
The SB66 runs as a limited stop service
Mondays to Fridays until the early evening.
At other times of the day and on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays,
the less-frequent 66 takes over.
Both these buses take about an hour to reach Monschau.
They don't call at Aachen's central station,
but they do call at Rothe Erde station for local trains to and from Cologne.
By car, Monschau can be reached from the A44 autobahn,
leaving at the Aachen-Lichtenbusch exit
and following the signs for Monschau.
But there is one thing you need to bear in mind about this route,
and that is that between the towns of Roetgen and Konzen it passes through Belgian territory.
Although it is a German road, and it's not even connected to the Belgian road network,
it is still subject to Belgian law.
You'll notice this because it has a 90 km/h speed limit
instead of the usual 100 for a German road.
There are also different regulations regarding things like, for example, blood alcohol limits.
As far as I know, Belgian police don't actually patrol the road
looking for Germans breaking Belgian road traffic regulations.
But if you have an accident, then there may be a problem.
There is an international treaty allowing German paramedics to respond;
but if there's any violation of traffic regulations to be investigated,
that will be handled by the Belgian police and the Belgian courts,
and they will do so according to Belgian law.
In addition, there are a couple of points
where this road crosses the cycle path that I mentioned in the video,
which is also on Belgian territory;
and there you will face the same kind of issues,
so it's even more important than normal to watch for cyclists.
Wheelchair uses will find Monschau challenging, if not completely inaccessible.
Even if you're not in a wheelchair,
some of the footpaths up the Haller can get rather slippery underfoot,
so be especially careful in wet weather.
And finally, I am very happy to report
that at least somebody was pleased to see me.
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