Blogs from North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, Europe - page 8

Bonjour à vous tous, chers amis Québécois !!! Hier matin, le 18 août, nous avons pris le train pour nous diriger d'Hambourg à Cologne. Véro était bien excitée d'aller y rejoindre Maria, une amie allemande qui était venue apprendre le francais chez ses parents il y a 6 ans. Ca faisait plus de 3 ans qu'elles ne s'étaient pas revues. En plus, c'était l'anniversaire de Maria alors c'était un excellent cadeau de fête. Donc, après 4h de train, nous sommes arrivés à Cologne (Köln), 4e ville d'Allemagne où est née l'Eau de Cologne mais qui est surtout connue pour sa majestueuse cathédrale (Köln Dom). Le Dom est situé à quelques mètres de la gare et il nous éblouit donc dès notre sortie. Il est d'ailleurs inscrit au Patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO. Vous pourrez apprécier avec nos ... read more

Woke up late to a lovely sunny hot morning.. no driving needed so we could relax and do some serious sight seeing!! Sam had already decided he wanted to go to the Chocolate museum and I wanted to visit the cathedral. Neither were disappointing. Had a lovely walk along the Rhine and stopped for a coffee and some people watching too. The chocolate museam is a great place for kids - it gives the history of chocolate coming to Europe as well as a factory to see the various stages of making chocolates. The taste from the chocolate fountain was good and the whole place smelt lovely. Hotel is OK - only about 20 minutes from the city so we have walked for miles today. Both exhausted and are now chilling in the hotel. For tomorrow's ... read more

Hello All, We took advantage of our beautiful sunny Monday, and we explored the Rhine in the other direction: up stream toward the south. Bonn has these great bike trails along the Rhine and we had taken them several times north to the center of town. We decided to take the bikes on one of the ferries one way south and then ride them back, I think it was even my idea. We bought passage from Bad Goddesberg (Near Margies Home) to Lindt for 17,80 € for the both of us and the bikes first thinking the wind would be at our backs when returning. The trip was beautiful on the large ferry and they had no problem putting our bikes on board. The cruise up was great, but I ended up paying 6.2 € for ... read more

That was a loooong drive! After leaving the hotel in Ypres we decided to drive around and have a look at some of the cemetries so we lost track of where we were... The cemetries we visited were smaller than we expected and much smaller than the ones I have seen on the TV. Though small they were still hard hitting and sad. There were many just for "a soldier" as the identity was not known so it is lovely that they have a grave. Interesting and I hope will bring history to life for Sam as he learns about it in school. The journey didn't start well - mostly because we didn't know where we were! We saw lots of small rural Belgian villages - interesting at first but frustrating - I kept telling Sam ... read more

We have recovered from the adventures in Prague and Munich; the quiet home along the Rhine is good for that. We went to the grocery store and spent € 38 on fruits and veggies, bread, beer, and a bottle of wine. We also go some hamburger as that is something we really miss. Ok, we got some ice cream bars too. We have vowed to not go to any American fast food places, like the ubiquitous Mickey D, but we still had a taste for hamburgers. And, it turned out good. We have been getting a lot of rain, today we went to Bonn to buy our tickets to Amsterdam for Wednesday morning, and got drenched. Attached is a picture of Linda outside the Starbucks in the Bonn Zentrum square. So, it is off again to ... read more

No surprises this morning when a quick look out the hotel window confirmed the customary heavy cloud and intermittent rain were with us again. That helped confirm our decision to take motorways from Kassel to Cologne rather than drive the smaller country roads. In addition, our map showed a veritable labyrinth of autobahns and minor roads curling and criss-crossing around the cluster of cities that surround Cologne, so with no hesitation we turned on the GPS and set off. The motorways were very busy and it was quite noticeable from the registration plates that a vast number of Dutch people must have headed south for the summer and were now returning home. We wondered who’s left in the Netherlands. Just over two and a half uneventful hours later we drew up at our hotel on the ... read more

Last time I wrote I was getting ready for 10 days of cycling through the borderlands of Germany and Poland. Er, that seems like a lifetime ago. Well, since then I've been there and done that, and from what I can remember, it was enjoyable (when the weather was agreeable). Really. I have a vague recollection of us being somewhere around Berlin. I know I was in Poland because I was paying with zlotys for a couple of days. I know the places I overnighted because I made a point of writing it down. The rest though is all a bit of a blur. I've been racking my brain to understand why and come up with a theory. Here goes... For the last 18 years I've done these types of bike trips on my own. Suffice ... read more

Well, we are back in Bonn after traveling on rail, bus, car, and plane. One thing about Europe, they have getting around nailed. It is raining lightly, but enjoyed such good weather over the last week's travels, that the rain presents a good time to upload some photos from the last week. ... read more