Cologne

We took a weekend trip to Cologne to meet up with the Komnik family, Eric's cousins. We hopped on the train late Saturday morning and arrived in time for lunch. It was an awesome sight walking out of the train station onto a plaza right in front of the huge Cathedral. We did not waste anytime checking in at our hotel and having lunch at Peters Brauhaus, near the church. We sampled some of the local food and beverages before touring the church. 

Eric, Carsten, Jonas, and Adeline then went to climb the bell tower after our visit inside the mammoth church. Christiane, Emmie, and myself, walked around the plaza and then rested on a bench to people watch while we waited for them to return. Upon returning, Adeline exclaimed she climbed 533 steps up to the bell with Jonas and Eric and could see out over the Rhine River. Carsten did not make the last flight of stairs, but still enjoyed the lookout from the platform where he stopped at. 

After an ice cream break, we strolled through the old city, along the Rhine River and over to the Chocolate Museum. The museum was kid friendly with numerous little activities for them to do and had a hot house with a cocoa tree. We also sampled some fresh chocolate from a huge fondue container. I sure would like the worker's job of dipping cookie wafers into chocolate to hand out to visitors. They had set-up an assembly line to show the process of making chocolate pieces from cocoa beans and then wrapping each piece of candy. We walked through each station, so the girls could see the each step. At the end, the worker gave each child a handful of wrapped Lindt chocolates. On the top floor, they had the culture section on chocolate, so it was interesting to see the marketing history of the European chocolates.

Our evening concluded with dinner on the promenade and an evening stroll back through town. The town is very pretty to see at night with all of the churches lit up. The lighting displays the ornate detail that is constructed and one may miss it in the daylight. The sight of the Catherdral at night is breathtaking. 

When we got into our room as it was not available earlier, we could see the Cathedral. They brought us a crib for the child's bed, so Emmie thought it was neat to sleep in, so we let her. 

The church bells started ringing at 7am sharp and woke me up. I closed the windows, but the sound could still faintly be heard. It also woke Emmie up, but not Adeline, who was still recovering from her trek up to the bell.

We strolled through the shopping district in the late morning as we had a few hours before our train left. When I came across Dunkin Donuts the second time, I could not resist and bought a few favorites for the return train ride. Adeline picked out the donut with blue frosting and sprinkles which was called America's #2 favorite donut.  We then found the Hard Rock Cafe, so we stopped in and bought a pin to add to our collection. 

Our early afternoon finished with a stroll along the Rhine River. We thought we were leaving till we walked into the train station and there on the marquee flashing was our train would be over 40 minutes late. Fortunately, we were able to connect with the Komniks again for a beverage. Eric asked the train attendants if we could be on the next train that left in 20 minutes and our train ticket was approved with an official stamp. We jumped on the ICE to Frankfurt, which got us home before our orignal scheduled train would have.

It was wonderful to have indian summer weather to enjoy the beautiful city with the family.