Göttingen is a town in the far south of Niedersachsen, nearly
in the center of Germany (about 50km north-east from Kassel). It has about 100,000 inhabitants, 30,000 students, 1,200 dogs and four snooker tables.

Approach: From any direction but the vertical ones. If you approach by car from the south or east, drive any speed you want. Don't worry about getting a speedy ticket -- better fear getting a fine for lottering around on public roads in a wheeled tin.

The only way driving trough Göttingen without having a biker on your windscreen is to use the underground, which not exists, or riding a bike yourself (cause it hasn't a windscreen).

Biking in Göttingen is like driving trough desserts - you can drive any direction you want, any speed, against one-way streets, trough parks and in pedestrian precincts (which the inner city consists of to nearly 100%). Restrictions and law seems not to cover bikers, at least not in Göttingen. On the other hand, non-bikers have to expect the apperance of cyclers at any time, any place and especially any speed. It has been told that a biker won a contest against a Porsche in driving trough Göttingen. Of course it was unfair, the Porsche had to use roads.

Additionaly to the normal traffic lights coloured red, yellow and green you'll find others showing the numbers 40, 50 or 60 in white colour. These strange lights mean that you have to add about 20 km/h to come just in time to stop in front of the next red traffic light - or you drive 20km/h less than displayed, then you can admire the change from green to yellow and then red instead. This is a good time having a little break of five or six minutes. Astonishingly no one is driving the displayed speed in km/h, which can only be explained by the thesis the drivers just dislike the colour green.

Along with the fast green and white coloured cars with blue lights on
the top you'll see fast cars with blue lights on the top in the
colour red and white. These belong to the fire departement and their
job seems to be waking up all students with their horns and lights
every thirty minutes or so. It's also impossible not to see students
on the streets walking -- or more and more biking -- from one institute building to another. The University of Göttingen is spread all over the city. If you see a big, old building, or a bigger, new building, it is probably belonging to university - watch out for bikes in front of it, this is a good indicator. And especially watch out for these driving in front, behind, and at both sides of your car. Nothing is more anoying than a biking student kicking a dent in your right door, and nothing is more expensive than the court trial for bulldozing him afterwards. Perhaps you're thrown into jail for that, one of the sights of Göttingen, about 500m away from the rail station, another sights -- especially for protesters, cause of the fact that nearly every castor nuclear waste transport in Germany
passes this station. By the way, in 1999 three dud bombs from the second world war were detected below these rails.

If you found a place to leave your car (no simple exercise, believe it!) you can start exploring the inner city. This is a more or less likely ordered mix of pavement cafes, pubs and banks. There is a remarkable high number of banks in the inner city, but there is also a remarkable high number of book stores and churches. Of course, there is a McDonalds, too. In the center you can find the landmark of Göttingen, the Gänseliesel¹.

If you happen to visit Göttingen in october, perhaps you can take
part at the big public benefit duck race on the Leine river, the river crossing Göttingen. No matter if you are no duck and can't swim, you can buy an official yellow plastic duck (or more to increase your winning chances) at any store in Göttingen. Winner is the owner of the winning duck. Even if you don't take part, don't miss to see grown up people and children running at the river coast trough the city behind a lorry load of plastic ducks.

Leaving Göttingen: See approach, but check if you have to refill. After 11:00pm it's really tricky to get some gas, only two filling stations near the Autobahn A7 (Kasseler Landstraße, west part of Göttingen) are open trough the night hours.

¹: a goose herdswoman