ABERYSTWYTH celebrated its 25th anniversary of twinning with a German town.

A group of twinning association members and a brass band, led by Alan Phillips, have just returned from a week in Aberystwyth’s twin town, Kronberg-im-Taunus.

Every year, Kronberg holds a festival weekend in August. But this year, the festival was expanded to include a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the official twinning.

Chris Hodgson, Chair of the Aberystwyth Twinning Association, said: “The band played at events over three days, and their contribution was very much appreciated by all the festival-goers.

“The Aberystwyth group had a tour round the Alltstadt – the medieval part of Kronberg, and also visited Frankfurt and Limburg. It was a very welcome return to twinning visits, after two years of enforced inactivity due to the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Kronberg is one of four twinned towns for Aberystwyth, in addition to St Brieuc, France, Esquel, Patagonia, and Arklow, Ireland.

While the two towns were officially twinned in 1997, their close relationship began in 1968 when Fritz Pratschke, a teacher at Altkönigschule, in Kronberg, started school exchanges with Ardwyn Grammar School, in Aberystwyth.

Music exchanges began in 1980 and in the early 1990s a Friendship Association was formed to foster twinning links. The twinning activities are organised by Aberystwyth Kronberg Twinning (AKT) committee, as of 2003 when the committee became independent of the town council.

In 2017, Parc Kronberg skatepark was opened on Boulevard De Saint Brieuc by Aberystwyth Town Council, thanks to Big Lottery grant funding.