A quick stopover to see the cathedral and to enjoy some kolsch beer!
It was time to change cities! Unfortunately with our timeline, we ended up travelling on a Sunday. Sunday is one of the most expensive days to travel so we had to resort to a 6:30am train. I had banked on us getting an Uber to the train station but when we tried to book, the drivers would refuse to head towards us until we had told them where we were going. As soon as we did, they would cancel the ride! I ended up having to flag a taxi and luckily got a non-scammy taxi driver (he even rounded down the bill which we cancelled out by tipping!).
This was my first time experiencing a high speed train, however, I had read blogs detailing how to find our carriage and seats so boarding was relatively easy. We had booked two window seats opposite each other on a table. In theory, travel days are Sam’s work days so thankfully he managed to get in a decent amount of work over the 6 hour journey!
The train ride was super smooth and with the scenery flashing past at 200km an hour, the trip went super quick! The German countryside is beautiful and the little towns that went by were so quaint. I’m happy we decided to take the train instead of flying! Sam even remarked he would pay a premium in future to take the train over a flight which is good because we have many more trains to go on this trip!
We arrived in Cologne just after lunch to a relatively warm spring day. Our decision to stop in Cologne was mainly driven by a want to break up the train journey from Berlin to Brussels. It wasn’t much more to stop for a couple of nights. The stop also providing us with the opportunity to experience another German city!
We stayed for two nights in a lovely Airbnb studio a 30 minute walk from the station. As we were carrying our bags and had some time before we could check in, we stopped half way for lunch and had our first experience of kolsch beer. It is very drinkable (definitely too drinkable!).
The Airbnb was lovely and clean and had everything we could need (including a washing machine to catch up on some laundry!). After checking in, we headed back towards the main centre of Cologne and the magnificent Cologne Cathedral. Photos do not do this amazing imposing piece of gothic architecture justice! The scale of it can only be experienced!
Afterwards we continued meandering through the laneways and side streets until we ended up next to the Rhine river. The Sunday markets were on and it was very lively with pop up bars and food stalls along the river banks. I had planned to do a full circuit to the next bridge and back. However, there were some ominous dark clouds looming. Sam convinced me to turn back which was the right decision as about half way back, it started to rain. We grabbed some pizza and more kolsch beer and headed back to our Airbnb for a quiet evening of work and relaxation.
After a slow start to the morning, we wandered through the streets to a bakery for breakfast before making our way towards the Chocolate Factory next to the Rhine River. We decided not to go in as it was expensive (25 euros each!) and continued walking along the river banks to admire the architecture.
Crossing the bridge, we walked back along the river and captured some more views of the cathedral as well as the love lock bridge. It was quite an overcast and murky (but warm day), and even though it wasn’t even lunch time, there were already people out drinking by the river banks!
We walked across the love lock bridge and admired all the various locks and tried to decide if any of the couples were still together. After another big day of walking, we decided to spend the afternoon back at the Airbnb catching up on more work and other life admin. Dinner was a healthy salad with a not so healthy beer!
Cologne was a nice stopover to catch up on some R&R but apart from the cathedral, there wasn’t much else to see. I found the city quite boring! You can see everything there is to see in an afternoon. I did not really rate it and was very much looking forward to continuing on our journey!
