Sixsens Vaals-Lemiers (NL) /Aachen

Lemiers

Name origin

aqua --> Aquis villa (lat., = water, reference to the original existence of Roman baths)

First documented mention

765 AD

Population

249,000

Area

160.85 km²

Administrative region

Köln

District

Städteregion Aachen

Vehicle registration

AC, MON

River

Wurm

The Club Sixsens near Aachen is located on Dutch territory between the villages of Vaals and Lemiers.

Naturally, Aachen is proud of its Historic Town Hall, which rises magnificently on the central marketplace with its majestic gables, and of the venerable Cathedral opposite. The destruction of the Second World War inflicted severe wounds on Aachen's compact city centre, yet you can still easily make out the course of the closed old-town ring in the cityscape, within which lies the historical whores' alley that has existed since the Middle Ages and can still be walked through openly. Since 1872 it has been called Antoniusstraße, named after Saint Anthony of Padua, who was particularly dedicated to the poor and to prostitutes. For decades there have been plans to banish prostitution from this area, but so far they haven't been carried out.

Aachen is one of the most historically significant German cities. The city's landmark, Aachener Dom, is the seat of the Diocese of Aachen and, together with the Cathedral Treasury - one of the most important collections of ecclesiastical cultural treasures in the world - was the very first cultural monument ever to be added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The foundation stone was laid around 795, and construction was completed around 803. The remains of Charlemagne - Aachen's most prominent figure of identification - grandson of the majordomo Charles Martel and the most significant ruler from the Carolingian dynasty, lie buried in the Palatine Chapel of the cathedral. Under him the Frankish Empire reached its greatest extent. From 936 to 1531, 31 German kings and emperors were crowned in Aachener Dom. Only with the separation of the Netherlands from the German Empire in the 16th century did Aachen lose its geographically central position, and from then on Frankfurt took over as the coronation site.

The Latin roots in the name already hint at it: Aachen is actually a spa town. Even in antiquity Roman baths were taken there. After the withdrawal of the Roman troops around the 5th century, the region was Germanised by the Franks. Charlemagne spent the winter at the Aachen court for the first time in 768/769 and turned it into an imperial palace. Today's Aachener Rathaus was built in 1349 on the remains of the dilapidated Königshalle of the imperial palace. In 1166 Aachen was granted city rights by Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa with the Karlsprivileg. The First Peace of Aachen on 2 May 1668, in which Louis XIV had to give back above all the Free County of Burgundy, ended the so-called War of Devolution between France and Spain. In 1748 the Second Peace of Aachen ended the War of the Austrian Succession. In 1794 the city was seized by Napoleonic troops and annexed to France; after the Congress of Vienna in 1815 Aachen became part of Prussia.

The list of buildings worth seeing in Aachen is endless; besides the cathedral and the town hall, mention should be made of the Elisenbrunnen, the Grashaus, Haus Löwenstein, the Büchelpalais and the remnants of the medieval city wall. As a spa town, Bad Aachen is interesting with its historic Kurpark including the Kurpark-Terrassen and the casino at the Tivoli, the Elisenbrunnen in the city centre and the modern bathing area of the Carolus Thermen.

Today Aachen is known as the location of numerous well-known businesses, including in particular AachenMünchener Versicherungsgesellschaft (Generali Deutschland), Philips Deutschland GmbH, the Ford research centre FFA and Continental, as well as products and companies from the confectionery industry (Aachener Printen, Zentis, Lambertz, Lindt & Sprüngli). The Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH), one of the largest and most tradition-rich technical universities in Europe, has spawned numerous, especially technical, company and research spin-offs and works closely with the local automotive industry, for instance in the "competence center automotive region aachen". The RWTH Aachen University Hospital is one of the largest hospital buildings in Europe.

The CHIO Aachen is a world festival of equestrian sport and international riding tournament (Concours Hippique International Officiel) that has taken place in Aachen since 1924.

Three renowned awards are presented in Aachen every year: the Internationaler Karlspreis zu Aachen is awarded on Ascension Day for special merits in the cause of European unification. The Aachener Friedenspreis honours people who have helped improve understanding between nations and between people. The third is the Orden wider den tierischen Ernst, awarded to individuals, usually politicians, who have distinguished themselves through particular "humour in office".

Among Aachen's well-known sons and daughters are Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Hasenclever, Otto Graf Lambsdorff, Ildikó von Kürthy, Kool Savas, Armin Laschet and David Garrett.

Vaals:

The town of Vaals already lies on Dutch soil; the district of Lemiers belongs to it. Like Aachen, it lies at the tripoint of the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, and for the period from 1830 to 1919, taking into account the then-neutral territory of Neutral-Moresnet (today's Kelmis in Belgium), it even lay at a four-country point. Historically the town belongs to the St.-Adalbert-Stift in Aachen and passed to the Duchy of Limburg in the late Middle Ages. With the emergence of the Republic of the United Netherlands in 1581 - the predecessor republic of the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands, which arose from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 -, it became Dutch. The Vaalserberg, located within the municipal area, is at 322 m above sea level the highest elevation of the continental Netherlands.