New Years in Cologne

We stayed in Cologne for 6 nights and used it as a bit of a base to see the area from there.

I found Cologne similar to Belgium... similar architecture... dominance of beer halls... What I liked about the beer halls here was that they served the beer in 200mL glasses.. small I know... but they come around with a replacement as soon as you’ve finished unless you indicate you don’t want another by putting your coaster on top of the glass... I liked it... and meant the beer was a lot fresher!

We weren’t blessed with great weather for our time in Cologne... it rained most days... So our first day there we decided to do the big bus tour... It started at the Cathedral which dominates the skyline, and which I found quite scary and ominous... the hotel was over the river directly opposite the cathedral so had to make sure the curtains were shut at night or I couldn’t get to sleep.... really eerie... anyway... the bus took us past all the sites, of which there are few.... and we jumped off at the chocolate museum... heaven! It was a lot more sophisticated and interesting than the little museum in Brussels... It must have either been sponsored or run by Lindt cause there were Lindt chocolates being made on the line.. taste testing was definitely a highlight! As were the old confectionary vending machines... found them quite cool...

We took a day trip to Maastricht, Netherlands, where my grandfather grew up. We took the train... we managed to get on different trains at Cologne – cause the others had first class tickets through their Eurail passes, and I was just in second class – I was on the right one... didn’t realise in time that there were actually 2 trains on the same platform! Still we ended up in Maastricht only 45 mins apart... funny....

Again, weren’t blessed with the weather which was a real shame. Maastricht is a great little place, not yet too overcome with tourists... and the shopping is really good amongst all the little streets – so probably a good thing it wasn’t a good day to be strolling around! We visited the church where my great uncle helped design the stained glass windows... the house where my grandfather grew up... I had been before, but it was nice being there with mum and showing Belinda and Tash around.

The rest of my time in Cologne was really chilled out... for New Years Eve we had dinner at a little Italian place that didn’t require bookings then had a couple of drinks in the hotel room watching the crowd gather on the river front... what I love about New Years eve in Europe compared to Australia is that everyone is still allowed to set off their own fireworks – so the fireworks started about 7pm!! Funny watching people scare other people with bungers as they walked past!... Just before 12 we headed down to be amongst the crowd and it started snowing – was a really nice fun atmosphere... I’m not sure if there were actually any public fireworks displays but it was good all the same!

From Cologne I said good bye to Bel and Troy as they headed to Frankfurt for their flight home... Mum and Tash got the Eurostar back to London and I flew –there was a bit of delay on my flight because of weather... so took almost the same time as it would have taken on the train! (But it was cheaper!!)