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Published: January 12th 2007
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Cologne - Germany
Biggest/Oldest Cathedral in Europe DAY 3;
This morning we leave Amsterdam on our way to St.Goar but first stopping at Cologne and driving through the Rhine Valley. We get to Cologne in a couple of hours and are happy to see that the Great Christmas Markets are still on and thriving. We are first greeted by the BIGGEST Cathedral in Europe, which is soooo large that even if you lie on the ground to take a photo you still cant get it all in. It is absolutely amazing, i have no idea how they could build something like that so long ago when they haven’t got any of the technology we have today! And its not just that its so big, but there is so much detail in every brick and door way and window, it is truly spectacular!!
Anyways so we have a wander through the Christmas markets and have some of THE BEST apple and cinnamon crepes i have EVER had and also try a White chocolate Coated Banana… Interesting combination that one!
We spend about an hour and a half looking around the markets and inside the Cathedral and then it is time to move on and take a
Cologne - Germany
Christmas Markets (Best Crepes EVER!) drive through the Rhine Valley on our way to St.Goar.
The Valley was pretty awesome, it has a HUGE lake at the bottom which is said to be cursed by a beautiful mermaid who sits on the edge of the river and distracts the shipmen so that they crash to the bottom of the river. Lovely hey.. Anyways so we don’t really get a good look as we are just driving through it, but there are beautiful castles all along the top of the hills which are now hotels, and lots of houses along the shore line as well, apparently a pretty rich area.
After about an hour we reach St.Goar which is a tiny little town where the main street is about 100m long and has one supermarket, one bank, and the home of a Beer Stein factory and also a Vineyard. It is also home to the Biggest Free Standing Cuckoo Clock in the World - pretty amazing! Haha
So we get to St.Goar and are taken through the steps of how to make an original German Beer Stein. Which is pretty cool as each one is handmade and they are always given a number,
Cologne - Germany
Me in front of the doors.. that’s how you know they are authentic. The shop also housed the biggest beer stein in the world, which stood at around 1.5m tall! Pretty cool!
We were then whisked away to a wine tasting session at the local vineyard (about 50m round the corner from the beer steins and the main street). We were seated in the main cellar area with the big barrels of wine and were treated to 5 different types, starting with a Dry white and working our way up to the most disgusting sweetest, desert wine I have ever tasted!! Byron however, really liked the sweeter wines! Strange boy… anyway we were taught the proper technique of wine Tasting, although we got to swallow the contents, we didn’t have to spit them out or anything, so after 5 generous tastings most people were pretty happy!
After the wine we went even more into the countryside to our hotel where we were staying at a little family run place which was reall lovely. We had dinner at the hotel and then we all congregated in the bar downstairs. Haans, our host in the bar, was very generous and treating all us spirit drinkers to
St Goar - Germany
Biggest beer Stein in the world no less than triple shots ALL night!! One of the girls eventually said ‘Haans, no triples this time’ and his reply was ‘Ok doubles then’ and she had to beg him to only put a single in, he didn’t seem to understand why she would want to do this, but succumbed in the end!!
Needless to say we were all pretty hammered that night, and I wish I had taken my camera coz there would hae been some great shots! Byron, Al (Australian Army dude that became good mates with Byron) and I ended up being the last ones in the Bar (surprised??) and called it a night at about 1am.. we had been drinking NON-STOP since 5:30pm!!! OUCH! I don’t actually remember getting into bed that night, I am glad it was the right one that’s for sure!!!
So up we get at 6:30am, we made it to breakfast, somehow, I think we were both still drunk, so weren’t feeling to bad… then at around lunchtime as we were driving on the bus I started feeling a little queezy. I tried to talk myself out of it, saying its ok, im not that bad, I don’t need
St Goar - Germany
The 'Amazing' Biggest free Standing Cuckoo Clock in the world to spew… well when your sitting on a bus full of people, its warm and there are bumps and turns and music and all that stuff, its really quite impossible to stop yourself from feeling sick! So I tell Byron im not feeling to well and head up the front of the bus to tell Lucky that I need to use the toilet coz im gonna hurl. Unfortunately I couldn’t actually get the words out, I just had to put my hand over my mouth and he told me to grab 2 plastic bags, go into the toilet and spew into one, then tie it up and put it in the other one, dump it in the sink and grab it at the next stop and throw it away. SO I rush down to the toilet, open the door and up comes the spew… soo I had to hold it in my mouth while I locked the door, sat on the seat, tried to open the plastic bags, but OF COURSE when you are in a rush they stick together and I couldn’t lick my fingers to separate them so I went through 5 of the bags (I grabbed a handful just in case) and finally got one open. Then out comes the spew… PHEW!! But then I wasn’t finished was I, so I go again, this time I get the edge of the bag and it spills over the edge onto my leg… real nice Emma! Anyways I get all cleaned up and feel soooo much better and head back out to take my seat and to this day, only a handful of people know about that Bus spew, and only because I told them. I am pretty impressed with my efforts to hide that one!!!
So now that I have totally grossed you out, I will move on!!
We only had a short stay in Germany and didnt really meet to many locals, but the ones we did were lovely and i wouldnt mind seeing a bit more of the countryside one day. There is a lot of history in that place thats for sure!
Our next stop was Mt Pilatus in Switzerland where we would be staying in the HIGHEST hotel in Europe. It is 2300m high and literally above the clouds. It was such an AWESOME spot and still one of my favourite places in from the whole trip...
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