Cologne, Germany

Hi there! I tried to post this one more on time! I'm working on this whole blogging thing!!

Day 1: Frankfurt to Cologne

Date: Thursday, August 31st, 2023

Step count: 22,041 (a new record!!!!!)

Good morning Frankfurt and thankfully it was the last morning waking up in the Red light district!! This morning it was of utmost importance to find the route with the least amount of brothels and sketchy people because I would be dragging two heavy suitcases with me and I feel like I'm pretty defenceless at that point.... Anyway, we made it the long 200m from the hotel to the train station with no issues and all went well. I even got my arm workout in for the day! So we arrived at the busy Frankfurt train station, figured out what tracks to stand next to and started a mission to find coffee. There weren't too many options but we took the least adventurous route and got McDonald's coffee and German smoothies (more like juice, but still a decent breakfast!). I know our coffee choices were not too culturally immersive but I figure that I have months and years to become more European.

But I'd say the first step to becoming more European is to figure out their train system and I think we did that pretty well today! We learned that Europe is WAY more advanced than we are when it comes to trains and they have small screens on the sides of each seat to tell you whether the seat is reserved and when it is reserved (for example from the Frankfurt main station to the Frankfurt airport station). I thought this was pretty cool technology and it only took us 3 attempts sitting in the wrong seats to figure it out.

The train ride was great! Nice and easy and only took about an hour, it's crazy how far you can get while travelling 289km/h.

We arrived in Cologne at about 11:30 AM and walked to our hotel that IS NOT in the red light district! The walk to our hotel required no special routing, no sketchy people sightings, and no scents of urine. We are moving up in the world!

After dropping our bags we headed right out into the city! A 2-minute walk from our hotel is the Cologne Cathedral (a real cathedral this time), which is an absolutely astonishing site! the pictures simply do not do it justice.

We continued walking along the Rein, through the old market (Alter Markt), along cozy cobblestone streets, stopping at every cool-looking building along the way. Featured here in the photos are a nice cozy street, Cologne City Hall and an old Cologne City Wall. We also walked through the "new market" or the shopping street where 13,000 people walk through every hour. Insane!

We stopped for lunch at Cafe de Paris (I know, a French cafe in Germany? Weird. But it's becoming a reoccurring theme to eat different cuisines in Germany as Canadian tourists). Our salads were amazing, then we continued walking around and exploring Cologne.

Our walk took us across a bridge over the River Rein where we saw some other churches, a beach club and a very nice park. In Germany, there are open container laws meaning you can drink alcohol (openly, without shaming) in public and this is so common that there's a term "Wegbier". "Weg" means "way" so it's an "on your way" beer. Obviously, we had to take part! When in Germany, right?! So we enjoyed our wegbiers while walking along the Rein and spotted some fellow Canadians.

Our last river cruise was such a good experience and so informative that we figured we should book one here too to learn about Cologne from the River Rein. What we didn't expect was that the 8 PM cruise is less of the touristy "if you look out the left side, you'll see this..." kind of thing and more like a full-on booze cruise. I'm talking bachelorette-level booze cruise. So Kimmy and I leaned in a little, drank lots of wine and enjoyed the people-watching. It was quite entertaining. Oh, and the Cologne skyline was quite pretty too!

Our cruise finished at about 10 PM and we walked back to our hotel (without fear!!!) to get a good night's sleep.

Day 2: Chocolate, Churches & Beers

Date: Friday, September 1st, 2023

Step count: 13,168 (way lower but still more steps walked than ml of beer consumed so I'd still call that a win)

Today was a rainy day from the moment we got up until late in the afternoon so we tried our best to find some fun, German, indoor activities and boy did we!!

We started with breakfast at a very nice restaurant that seemed like the kind go place to serve high tea. It was very cute! We were seated under a glass roof so we were able to watch the rain fall and Kimmy was even lucky enough to have some actual water fall on her too. From breakfast, we headed to the Museum of Chocolate. Yep, you heard that right.

The Museum of Chocolate (Schokoladenmuseum) is actually a double-whammy with a Lindt chocolate factory (just in case a whole museum of chocolate couldn't get any better!!!). So we spent the morning there learning about the chocolate-making process, watching Lindt employees make custom chocolate bars, and getting to try a couple of different kinds of chocolate. The first part of this museum was based around the 17 Sustainable Development Goals which I thought was a super cool way to frame the information. This factory even had a chocolate fountain that pushes 2000kg of chocolate at any given point. It was magical.

The chocolate-making process is quite a specific series of steps that I don't think that I can fully explain but here are some nice photos of it.

To continue our Cologne experience, we next went to the Cologne Cathedral and had a guided tour. This was absolutely amazing, maybe even more amazing than the chocolate fountain, and that's saying a lot. This church has a rich history dating back to 1248. I understand it to be the 2nd largest (maybe tallest) church and has more stained glass than any other church, over 100m^2!!! Some of the glass is original, more than hundreds of years old and was able to survive the Allied bombings by being removed during the war. We learned lots, took lots of photos and took in all that was there. This church even houses the scalps and the bones of the 3 Wise Men. I'm not a religious person but this church was really cool.

After our religious lesson of the day, the next logical activity was to take part in a Beerhouse tour, getting to visit 4 different Bierhuises and try their beer! I'm hope the saints buried in the Cathedral would agree with our itinerary choices...

Our beer tour took us to sample 4 different Kölsch beers. I'm still not entirely sure what exactly Kölsch is but from my understanding, it is a type of beer, like pale ale (?), that is made by bottom fermentation in cold temperatures. Again, I'm new to this whole beer thing, so I'm really not sure but it was quite tasty! If there is anywhere in the world to start to appreciate beer, I think Germany might be it! As the tour went on, the beers just kept getting better! By the end of it, it was time to get some food so we enjoyed Schnitzel and another beer.

Our livers were ready for some relaxation so we came back to our hotel nice and early and enjoyed the sauna & steam room before heading to bed!

Goodnight Germany! Tomorrow we have a train to Ghent, Belgium, my home for the next little bit!