Cologne

After a train trip along the Rhine, I arrived in a drizzly Cologne, for the first time having to find my own way to the hotel without Rish’s help :) Fortunately, Cologne is extremely well signposted for tourists, and I knew I had to get to Neumarkt and Rudolfplatz to find Hotel Flandrischer Hof, which I’d booked for 105 Euro for 3 nights through bahn.de…

Gummi on the pillow each morning won me over – you can buy these at Aldi here!

My single room

Basic bathroom

“View”

Plate collection in the stairwells. There was a lift, but it went to the half floor, which was strange…

And of course, the breakfast buffet… Plenty of meats and cheese and bread, but I went bread and muesli. And discovered the awesomeness of lemon in tea.

I ditched my baggage and wandered back into the town centre… not to be missed if of course the ‘Dom’ or cathedral. I have too many photos of this!

Rudolfplatz is the Gay area, with plenty of pride flags to be seen

Hauptbahnhof

Main Rail Bridge

I thought it was really silly to have this area where there was a public square over the Philharmonic Hall, but you couldn’t walk on it because it wasn’t built right!

(It was about the time of seeing this I started to feel ill and queasy. I got to know the public toilets of Cologne with a bout of food poisoning, though it sucked to have to pay each time! /TMI!)

Cool little garden

Christ

You mean I can buy Lady Gaga clothes?

Cool bugs in a clothing store display.

Hetero and Gay Films!

More World Cup baked goods from Kamps

Just got a salad bar plate from a steak place for dinner.

Soccer shoes. Germany, you are OBSESSED

And bag and German flag shoes!

aww. Love notes

Pigeon heaven

Pretzel for my haggard stomach

Statue

Crossed over the river…

Cologne

Then I crossed back over the Train Bridge. It seems it’s covered in padlocks! A tradition that hasn’t taken off in Australia…

Some were more hardcore than others!

I think I spent an hour crossing that bridge… Then I thought I might wander up the Dom tower… at the bargain student price of 1 Euro. Always carry a student card in Europe. The Germans don’t seem to care if you’re full time or what when it comes to museums…

At least I thought it was a bargain until my legs got wobbly on the way up!

Germans and their graffiti

Worn steps

AWESOME view over Cologne

Back down on ground level

Most buskers

Jesus. Blaw blaw blaw

Speaking a Jesus, the hotel has the bible in 3 languages!

Menu Pig

Water level tower. There are regular floods.

There are also giant dogs in Cologne, which is why us little humans should pick up after them

I then went to the Chocolate Museum, and even though I shouldn’t eat chocolate, I did. Yet, it was bad for me, but it was GOOD :p

Blurry warm chocolate

I think this elephant was my mother’s highlight of looking at my pics!

Anyone else want a tap like that?

Old German chocolate mascot.

I’m not sure why there were Blue Sheep out the front of the chocolate museum. Where is the Green sheep?

Australian Cocoa Farm Chocolate for sale in the shop.

World cup outer case. Of course

Yes, I had this hot chocolate. It was divine. Yes, I suffered later for it. But IT WAS WORTH IT, dammit. Besides, my guts were still screwed over by the bug going through… might as well make it worse ;)

Then, I felt that I must walk off the awesomeness just consumed… and wound up in a sculpture park! (I dodged traffic to cross the road to it after seeing it… oops?)

Pop culture?

Car Crash

Someone sketching the car crash

My wanderings then took me back to the Roman museum… which I was ummiing and ahhing about going in, but then looked at the student price and thought “Why not?”…

I know there were things in here that were only uncovered quite recently, only after the city was bombed to bits by the Allies ;)

I find it impressive that so much of this survived all those years!

Okay how cute is this?

That evening I met up with friends who were living in Bonn at the time for dinner…

A little overwhelmed!

Additions

Yes, I had a hamburger at a Mexican place. I don’t think I ended up eating a Hamburger in Hamburg… stay tuned!

Called it an early night and I wasn’t feeling great and neither was one of my friends…

I had assumed these were for the world cup teams, but there were extras, and NO NEW ZEALAND!

Before I knew it, I was back on a train and on my way to Hamburg!

Tagged as: Chocolate Museum, Cologne, Dom, Europe 2010, love padlocks, World Cup Fever