Blogs from Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, Europe - page 3

So after my last blog, I decided to walk back into the city centre of Bruges and climb the bell tower. I paid the 10 Euros and started up the spiral staircase on the marble stairs. So far so good! As I carried on climbing the stairs got more and more narrow, and kept changing materials between wood, marble, and stone. There was only one staircase for people climbing up and down, so there was a lot of squeezing past other people while trying not to slip on your arse! There were a few platforms you could stop at to catch your breath, and read something historic about the tower. The way up was comparatively fine until about two thirds of the way up, when the staircase became TINY!! The steps were about 6 inches wide ... read more

I am still on the train, and am going to attempt to bust out another entry for this rather nifty city. I must say in terms of the actual city, I wasn’t overly impressed by the majority of the architecture, most of it seems like many other generic cities, albeit with some old and impressive buildings interspersed with more modern buildings. My primary motivations for visiting this place were to see an old friend of mine, and of course to see the Cologne Cathedral. My kiwi friend, Erin had moved over to Germany with her German boyfriend of whom she’d met while she was living in New Zealand, and whilst he was travelling within New Zealand. She’s spent about 6 or so months living in a town called Euskirchen, not too far from Cologne. She has ... read more

GÜN 03 KÖLN GÜNLERDEN CUMARTESİ. Dün gece fena uyumamışız. Kahvaltımızı balık ürünleri ile destekledik. Bazı kardeşlerimiz en üst güvertede 10 15 tur atıyorlar.Nasıl da imreniyorum.. Güzel olan ,bu turları kafalarına taktıkları gemi battaniyeleri ile yapmaları. Bazı battaniyeler turuncu renkte .. Onlara diyecek lafımız yok ama bazıları lacivert battaniyelere sarılıp hızla yanımızdan geçerken, arkalarından baktığımda Rhein hayaletleri gibi görünüyorlar . Malüm hava aktım akacağım grisi ve battaniye lacivert olunca ister istemez bu havayı veriyor. Bu koşu takımının müdavimleri; Gülgün,Vekaa,Fırat,Hale,Handan ve katılan ender de olsa bazı erkek atletler var.. Bu gün yolumuz var… Bu nedenle rehberlerimiz üst salonda sazı eline aldılar ve bu Ren nehrinin ne menem bir şey olduğunu bizlere a... read more

We cast off from Koblenz at 3:30am. It wasn't hard to go back to sleep. We docked in Cologne at 9:00am. There were lots of other big boats and they have to parallel park between each other. The captains/pilots really know what they're doing. Although there was a cruise led tour, this day we went off on our own. Our first stop was the central train station. We were told the signs were in German and English, but they weren't. Information told us to take a train from platform 10, but that went to the wrong airport. A station employee, who didn't speak English was able to understand Koln/Bonn Flughafen? He directed us to Platform 4. We'd also bought all day passes for up to five people (they come as one person or up to five), ... read more

Cologne. We docked overnight, but we knew in the morning around 5:30AM that we were in a big city, when an ambulance siren broke the silence. Today is a day of walking tour, and free time. After breakfast, we left the boat at 9:00 to walk around the square, of the Cathedral. This is one of Germany’s oldest cities, and was pretty much destroyed during the second world war. The Cathedral has a little damage, but the area beside it wasn’t so fortunate. The time to return to the ship was lunch. We had lunch on board, and cast off for Amsterdam. That is our final city, and the tour of the Romantic River Rhine will be history tomorrow night (Wednesday). We are having the farewell dinner tonight, since tomorrow night is not working well with ... read more

We were totally ready to go, all of the bags (just carry one bags, since it was only a weekend trip) had been packed the night before so we just had to grab them. We were all up early, we knew what metro lines we had to take to get to Gare du Nord where we were catching our train to Köln, everything was going great. At least until we got to the train station. Once we were there Bev realized that she had forgotten her purse, with the train tickets, back at the apartment! Luckily we were so early that there was enough time for her to rush back to the apartment and get her bag while Mike, Ed and I got some croissants to take on the train for breakfast. It is a bit ... read more