Aberystwyth’s mayor has travelled to Kronberg in Germany to celebrate Christmas with the twin town.

The friendship between Aberystwyth and Kronberg im Taunus started in 1968, when Fritz Pratschke started school exchanges between his school in Kronberg (Altkönigschule) and Ardwyn Grammar School.

These school exchanges continued as an annual exchange for many years and also developed musical exchanges from the 80s and 90s.

The twinning was made official in 1997 with the signing of the twinning agreement.

Herr Fritz Pratschke was made an honorary freeman of Aberystwyth in 2011 for his contributions to the twinning.

Mayor, Cllr Maldwyn Pryse, travelled to Kronberg earlier this month as part of the annual exchange.

He said: “It was a pleasure to represent Aberystwyth and speak at the Kronberg annual “Partnerschaftsabend” (partnership evening) in December in the company of 300 guests!

“I enjoyed visiting the famous Kronberg’s Christmas market, on which Aberystwyth has a stall every year.

“A special thank you to members of the Aberystwyth Kronberg Twinning committee for organising and manning the stall. We now look forward to welcoming our Kronberg friends back to Aberystwyth in the summer.”

There is also an annual visit to Kronberg in August for the Kunst & Weinmarkt festival (craft & wine market), which Aberystwyth’s brass band usually attends and plays in.

Music is a big part of the friendship, and Aberystwyth’s musicians and entertainment is held in very high regard in Kronberg.

Each year, a group of people come to Aberystwyth from Kronberg in the summer, and many other people holiday here of their own accord. A large group from Kronberg is arranging to visit Aberystwyth in July 2025.

Fritz Pratschke, Freeman of Aberystwyth, said: “We had the great pleasure of welcoming friends from Aberystwyth including the Major and his wife at the Kronberg Christmas Market.

“We , the guests and the hosts had a very good time and we all expressed hope for a return visit to our Welsh Twintown in July next year. “Although I have been to Aberystwyth more than 50 times I am still looking forward to coming back, meeting friends and enjoying the time in a beautiful town with its surrounding wonderful landscape. “People in Aberystwyth call me "Aber Fritz" due to my 30 years of school-exchanges and to my successful fight for the twinning of Kronberg/Germany and Aberystwyth/Wales. Here I would like to wish all my friends and all the people of Aber a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year!”

Kronberg is one of five towns around the world twinned with Aberystwyth.

The others are Arklow in Ireland, Esquel in Patagonia, Argentina, Saint Breiuc in France and Yosano in Japan.

Anyone who has an interest or would like to get involved in the twinning should contact either myself, my colleague Wendy Hughes (Cc’d) or the Secretary of AKT, Chris Simpson ([email protected])