Misadventures around Cologne

From the train heading to Cologne

So we set off nice and early to get a direct train to Cologne from Heidelberg, and had a beautiful scenic trip as the train tracks wind along the Rhein. On one side, we had vineyards on impossibly steep slopes and the other side was the river, with little villages and cities along it's banks, and an old castle ruin at the top of almost every outcrop, it was very picturesque and a definite recommendation for anyone traveling by train through Germany.



Once in Cologne, we found it's most famous landmark, the Cathedral, staring us in the face before we'd even made it out of the Hauptbahnhof.

Chocolate museum!

We walked around Cologne for a while, worked out our river cruise for the next day, visited the Lindt chocolate museum and decided to hop back on the train to visit Du(e)sseldorf for the afternoon.

Unfortunately we didn't find the tourist information booth on our arrival and it turns out that the Aldstadt and river area of Dusseldorf is a fair way away from the train station. We wandered for a while, weren't seeing much, got lost, wandered and got lost again, wandered, got lost and finally gave up on seeing anything interesting and made it back to the train station (with a detour, of course!). By the time we made it back to Cologne, we were stuffed! I must remember to always get a map!
 

Bingen, on a powerwalk to get to the boat in time!

Day two in Cologne we rose extra early to get the 5:56AM train back up (current wise, we headed south) the Rhine to Bingen so we could get the 9:30 cruise down the river to Koblenz and take in the scenery from on the river.

After finding the boat platform just in time, we hopped onto the boat to find it packed full with a Japanese tour group, the boat would almost sway to the side when they all clamored to the edge of the boat to take a photo of a castle!

The four hour cruise was very pleasant, we were very lucky as the sun came out and the wind wasn't too strong. There are so many castles along the Rhine, many are now hotels and inns dot the riverside. There looked to be a great bike path along the Rhine, I reckon a week of bike riding, sampling the local wine and enjoying the historic villages will be on my bucket list!

(warning: lots of random photos of castles follow)

We finished the cruise in Koblenz, the town where the Rhine and the Mozelle (I think that's right!) join together. It's a lovely old place, we had a lovely lunch in a square filled with flowers and historic statues. After wandering for a bit, we headed back to Cologne on the train for an early night.

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Location:Cologne, Germany