Blogs from Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, Europe - page 26

Woke up the next morning feeling a little worse for wear but made myself get out of bed and made my way to the train station. I got on a train to Cologne which is a two hour journey north. The trains in Germany are brilliant, they are really efficient and always run on time. For the most part of the trip the train travelled alongside the Rhine river which is really beautiful and well worth it. We passed several small towns each with their own church and nestled into the valley. They all looked exactly the same and as we rounded each bend sure enough another town, another church! We passed maybe fifteen of these small towns and occasionally seeing the remains of castles perched atop the hill. The river is pretty busy with many ... read more

The rain cleared not long after we began our canal cruise of Amsterdam this morning. The tour guide said there must be lots of angels on the bus because it rains in Amsterdam two hundred days of the year and this was only the second sunny day she’d ever experienced in this city. We believe we have been blessed with wonderful weather every day so far. It is so rare to have sunshine and blue skies at this time of year in Europe. We admired the narrow, leaning town houses of the “Venice of the North” and were amazed by the number of bicycles. Most people travel by bike instead of car because parking space is extremely limited and expensive, and the city is very flat. In Amsterdam, cyclists have right of way ahead of all ... read more

Cologne was the original (and main) destination of this trip, the reason we went on it in the first place - even if, with all the intermediate stops and side trips, we ended up spending less time in Cologne itself than we would have liked. On this third day of our mini Christmas market tour, we (very grudgingly) departed Amsterdam around 1:00 PM and arrived in Cologne almost 7 hours later, with a 2-hour stopover in Brussels, which we took advantage of to finally visit the Marché de Noël. The plan was that we'd leave our bags in the left luggage lockers at Brussels Midi, then we'd take the tram to Place Sainte Catherine, where the market took place. Brussels being as compact as it is, we figured we had enough time to travel there and ... read more

I stayed for four nights in Cologne, within walking distance of the huge cathedral. The two towers of the cathedral are 157 m high - it was the highest building in the world for four years in the 1880s. You can go to the top by climbing a seemingly neverending narrow spiral staircase. You really do get a sense of the height of the building this way, rather than by elevator. The views from the top were pretty good. The outside of the cathedral is very detailed and intricate and the inside was different than other big churches I've been in. It feels ancient (which makes sense since construction on the thing started in 1248). It supposedly holds the earthly remains of the three magi in an impressive looking gold box. Cologne has lots of old ... read more

to Germany มาถึงเมือง Cologne ตอนวันดีซะด้วย มีการจัดประชุมคาทอลิกเยาวชนที่นี่พอดี เด็กเล็กเด็กโตจากนานาประเทศทั่วโลก มาประชุมกันที่นี่หมด คนเป็นล้าน แรกๆก้อดีอยู่หรอกมองเด็กเพลินดี แต่พอนานๆไปเริ่มคิดได้ว่า เดินไปไหนมาไหนก้อไม่สะดวก จะกินไรก้อยาก คิวยาว คนเยอะ จะถ่ายรูปก้อไม่งาม คนแม่งเดินบังวิว เลยแอบเคืองโป๊ปเล็กๆ ทำไมต้องเลือกมาที่นี่ตอนช่วงที่เรามาเยอรมันด้วยวะ ปล. บิ๊กแมคสัญชาติเยอรมันราคา 4.59 ยูโร ... read more