So we woke up this morning after an interesting night in our hotel room. There is no air conditioning in most buildings here so we had our window open trying to get a cool breeze. About 4:00 am there began a loud commotion that lasted for sometime just outside our window. It was hard to sleep after that. Little did we know that it was market morning since it was Saturday. The entire marketplatz was full of vendors at dawn selling everything from fresh fruit and flowers, to baked goods, to fresh meat cut to your specifications. It was amazing, but we could have used more sleep. So back to the reason we are in Beckum. The Pieper (the spelling was changed to Peeper after the move to America) family’s oldest record traces them to St. Stephanus Church here in Beckum so we started there this morning. As if on cue as we walked up we began hearing pipe organ music from inside the church. We entered and found the organist to be practicing for tomorrow’s mass and he continued during our visit. The Pieper ancestors were married in this church in 1842 and their children were baptized here before they came to America. No records prior to this have been discovered for certain.
After some shopping at the local stores (including the Peeper Perfumerie) and a bit more exploring we moved on toward Bonn and Godesburg Fortress. We again crossed the Rhine River and came upon what was once the fortess village of Godesburg The outer fortress walls still are visible and the inner fortress is still partially intact as it was and has been rebuilt to function as a restaurant today. We paid to walk up to the top of the tower (it is becoming a habit for us to walk small winding staircases) to get a great view of the Rhine River valley and the surrounding areas. It is notable that there are castles and fortresses on nearly every hill of substantial elevation in the region. How awesome is that! 
Now off to Remagen…
Bill and Jeff's Historical Travel Blog 