Airlines have been busy over the summer carrying visitors from Ellesmere Port to twin town Reutlingen and bringing young people from Reutlingen to Ellesmere Port.
The Ellesmere Port/Reutlingen Friendship Group says a group of 60 students and seven teachers from Whitby High visited Reutlingen while staying at the attractive little town of Bad Urach at the foot of the Swabian Alps.
Dr Werner Strobele, head of the city’s cultural department, welcomed the visitors at an official reception.
The students, although on holiday, were then sent back to school to visit gymnasiums and grammar schools where they attended lessons and undertook a town trail prepared by the German students.
In the evening the English students enjoyed a barbecue at an environmental education centre hosted by their young German friends.
Although most footballers at the time were heading for Rio, a team from Ellesmere Port travelled to compete in another international competition.
Reutlingen hosted teams from all their various twin towns including Aarau, (Switzerland), Szolnok. (Hungary) and Roanne (France).
The Ellesmere Port team was reinforced by one player from Reutlingen’s twin US town of Reading and found time when off the pitch to make some interesting visits including to the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart.
More recently, Ellesmere Port has been hosting a group of young people and their leaders from Jugendhaus Bastille in Reutlingen.
They were welcomed at an official reception and dinner by the mayor of Ellesmere Port, Brian Jones, MP Andrew Miller and several councillors.
The group visited Liverpool to see the giants and attended the music festival in Ellesmere Port’s town centre.
They also enjoyed meeting members of the Oasis youth group who they met last year when the group visited Reutlingen.
