Eschweiler
Eschweiler (, Ripuarian: ) is a municipality in the district of Aachen in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany on the river Inde, near the German-Belgian-Dutch border, and about east of Aachen and west of Cologne. Main sights. Eschweiler main sights include: Also present is a series of castle and manors: Culture. Eschweiler has three municipal halls (Dürwiß, Kinzweiler and Weisweiler), a cinema, a municipal art collection and the so-called Culture Centre Talbahnhof for cabaret and music events. Every summer the "Eschweiler Music Festival" EMF takes place. People go to the numerous pubs around the "Market Place" and in  the old-town alley "Schnellengasse" as well as to the large-scale discothèque "Klejbor's". Carnival. Eschweiler is a center of Rhineland carnival. It has more than 20 active carnival clubs, and every Monday before Lent it has the third of Germany's longest carnival processions. Medical care. Eschweiler is home to the St. Antonius Hospital with 443 beds and 13 departments. Every year, there are some 15,000 in-patients and 25,000 out-patients. The Euregio Breast Centre is part of the hospital. Sports. Soccer, ice hockey, golf, open-air swimming pool, indoor swimming pool, horse sports, handball. Industry. Chemicals  and goods are the main products, while it also has a lignite-powered power plant rated at 2.8 GW. Science. The lignite (brown coal) deposits in the region are former Miocene swamp forest dominated by "Castanopsis", a type of chinkapin. Such plants do not occur naturally in Europe. A type of fossil wood has been described from logs found in Eschweiler mines. It was named "Castanoxylon eschweilerense" in reference to the town; the name would translate as "Eschweiler chinkapin wood", as it probably belonged to "Castanopsis" but perhaps to some other genus of chinkapin. Transport. Eschweiler has six railway stations : "Eschweiler Hauptbahnhof" (central station), "Eschweiler-Aue" (from 2009), "Eschweiler-West", "Eschweiler-Talbahnhof", "Eschweiler-Nothberg", "Eschweiler-Weisweiler" and "Nothberg" (till 2009). "Eschweiler-St. Jöris" is planned. Eschweiler has two bus terminals and bus lines in every quarter and in its whole vicinity. Autobahn exits on the A 4 include "Eschweiler-West", "Eschweiler-Ost" and "Weisweiler". The city can be reached also by three exits on the A 44: "Aldenhoven", "Alsdorf" and "Broichweiden". Twin towns – sister cities. Eschweiler is twinned with: