Aachen and Cape Town are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their town twinning. After a delegation from Aachen, led by Lord Mayor Sibylle Keupen, visited the twin city in South Africa in March, a delegation from South Africa is visiting Aachen this week. On Saturday, August 23rd, the twin cities celebrated their intensive friendship, which was sealed in the year 2000, at a ceremony in the Coronation Hall.

"The partnership between Aachen and Cape Town has grown over the years, it has enabled encounters, created friendships and built bridges - between our cities and, of course, between us people," said Lord Mayor Sibylle Keupen, welcoming the guests from Cape Town.

The pop choir of the Aachen Music School provided the musical backdrop to the ceremony with around 200 singers under the direction of Tanja Raich. Christoph Eisenburger (piano) and Luc Nelissen (vocal percussion) accompanied the choir.

A varied program awaits the guests during their one-week stay in Aachen. Numerous exchanges on economic topics, urban development projects and future joint projects will take place. They will also meet with Aachen's universities to discuss ways of working closely together.

Aachener Welthaus, the Khayelitsha Education Resource and Information Centre (KERIC), several other non-governmental organizations, the city of Aachen and the former city of Tygerberg signed a declaration of intent on 28 June 2000, which marked the beginning of the partnership. This was followed by many years of exchange and a warm friendship, a large number of joint projects and various exchange programs, so that the town twinning was officially sealed in 2017. The friendship between the two cities is based on the principles of mutual exchange, sustainability and shared learning.

Further information on Aachen's twin cities can be found at www.aachen.de/staedtepartnerschaften.