Bielefeld

Bielefeld is really a lovely town.  It has a great Altstadt (old town) with buildings from the 1500s, and a nice pedestrian zone with all sorts of both ordinary and high end shops; it's right on the edge of the Teutoberger Wald, which has tons of hiking and biking trails; the restaurants are varied and good.  It has fantastic public transportation, even for Germany; it has some lovely museums and other cultural venues.  It has the usual share of castles, old churches and other interesting buildings.  It has a well regarded university.  It even has an "adequate" football/socecr team.  It is something like the 20th largest city in Germany.  I could easily imagine living there.  Here are a couple of pictures of sights in Bielefeld.

This is the old Town Hall (Rathaus)

And this is the view from my friend Bettina's apartment, not directly downtown, but still within town and right next to public transportation (the apartment itself lives up to the view)

The odd thing is that there is an internet meme that is essentially "Bielefeld doesn't exist".  Even Angela Merkel has alluded to it ("I was in Bielefeld last week, at least I think that's where I was").  It's meant to epitomize the ordinary, boring German city where "no one goes".  But I  think that it's one of the prettier and more livable German towns I have been in.