We have arrived at our final stopover on a German rail tour and I'm so excited to be here.
Königswinter.
60 years in the making, I missed out on visiting two years ago when we visited Bonn, but this time I was determined for the missus and me to end here.
Being a boomer and a cold war kid I have always been fascinated by spies.
Königswinter was spy central in the 50's and 60's. Bonn, the West German capital was just across the Rhein and the post-war republic's first Chancellor worked and lived here, Conrad Adenauer.
But personally much more important to me is the fact that Königswinter was the residence of one John Le Carré, the master spy author and my late Dad's favourite. I can clearly remember his small collection of Readers Digest hardbacks of Smileys People, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and A Little Town in Germany, which is set in neighbouring Bonn.
Understandably the actual Gästhaus where Le Carré stayed is unknown, as he himself was an assistant secretary at the British Embassy in Bonn, before becoming a full-time writer when The Spy Who Came in from the Cold made him world famous.
Oddly, I can find no trace at all of Le Carré in Königswinter, unlike Lord Byron and Turner, whose residences are on the town map.
I even asked in a second hand bookshop if they had any of his books. Nichts.
No matter, I'm making up my own spy master footprints!
My second hand retro pen bought in the town's charity shop in commemoration of the author,
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