Travel Tips from Kika

Hello everyone!

I am Francisca Rodrigues an ERASMUS student from ISCAP in Porto, Portugal.

If there is something you must know about my RheinAhrCampus experience is this: it was very good and also bad at some times but in the end I return with a great sense of accomplishment and I leave a bit of my heart behind.

Let’s get real: Intercultural interaction can drive you mad at times, there will be times where everything is so different for you that you will appreciate your home so much: the people, the ways, the interaction...I can guarantee you will feel homesick. But it was worth it!

About Remagen: it is very quiet and for me this was odd but then it became comforting. Also your student card allows you to travel from Cologne to Koblenz free of charge! Also I suggest you get a bike as it makes everything easier.

In Remagen my favourite places were: Friuli, an Italian café by the river with delicious cakes; Volkan, the Turkish restaurant with awesome kebabs near the Townhall/Rathaus and Peperone, a pizza place in front of the supermarkets. You can also find Norma and Lidl (cheap supermarkets), Müller (for hygiene and cleaning products), Edeka (lots of product variety with good quality for reasonable prices), Tedi (random cheap goods), Müller Bäckerei (a bakery near the train station) Pharmacies (or Apotheke you have about 3), Toom (a hardware store) and a McDonalds near the train station. Also I strongly suggest you visit Ahrweiler and eat at La Perla restaurant (good, cheap and nice waiters).

To travel around (further away from where your student card allows you) I suggest you check bus rides (Bus Linien Suche) or even Ryanair and Wizz Air (low cost airlines) that work at the Koln/Bonn Airport (which you can reach with your student card so no extra transportation costs). I suggest you to travel a lot especially if you come from outside of the European Union.

I met wonderful people from all around the world: Brazil, Finland, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, South Korea, Spain. We all became quite close and for me that was the best of the whole experience.

Also thank you for everything to Sprachen/Internationales department and special thanks to the student mentors: Dennis “the bikeman”, Tanja “the Bavarian” and Tatjana “the rescuer”!

I’ll take all this experience close to my heart and my memory. Thank you everyone for turning this semester so unique and memorable!

Francisca “Kika” Rodrigues