Index:
Part 1: Intro + Travel to Amsterdam
Part 2: Amsterdam
Part 3: Cologne
Part 4: The Rhine + Trier
Part 5: Luxembourg/Belgium
Part 6: Paris
Part 7: Return Home
Sunday, December 9
It was this morning that I had a first – missing a train due to oversleeping. I had booked the 10:35 Amsterdam to Cologne InterCityExpress on Deutsche Bahn, which I had done in advance to get a 29€ fare online. I’ve aways made my prearranged trains in the past and despite being up until midnight, I didn’t think that a late-morning train would be a problem…
I woke up to the sound of housekeeping knocking on my door. I looked at my cell phone and it said 11:00. Panic shot through my mind despite knowing that there was nothing that I could do at this point. The ticket I had purchased was non-refundable and had to be used on that specific train. You miss it or choose not to take it? That’s your problem…and that became the problem of the day.
Since I figured I could get up early enough, I had made plans to wander the city streets and canals as it woke up and find a place for breakfast before going to the station. Now all I was interested in was getting all my gear packed up, checked out of my hotel, and getting to the station. I knew that was another train at 12:35, and I wanted to make sure I got a ticket as soon as possible. Making my way through the rain, I arrived, probably looking a bit distressed (I hadn’t even taken a shower) and found my way to the ticket office. A new ticket was purchased which then cost me 69€; now we were up to about 100€ just for me to go from Amsterdam to Cologne – not exactly a great way to spend my money.
Actually in that situation in retrospect, I should have looked to see if there was a slower train available (IC/EC/RE) that would have been cheaper (Typically slower trains like IC/EC or Regional trains are cheaper, but they can take much longer). It sucks that I didn’t think of that at the time, but perhaps in the future if I make the same mistake again, I’ll remember. Of course on the other hand I didn’t want to spend too much longer getting to my destination either, so there’s that whole bit.
Amsterdam Centraal Station
After getting a cup of coffee and a snack for the ride to Cologne, I made my to the track where the ICE train was waiting. I found my assigned seat without delay and got settled in for the ride. I had remembered back in 2009 being on a couple of ICE trains that had T-Mobile Hotspots, but apparently this one did not – that or it was turned off; not that it makes a difference. The ride was quick, getting me to Cologne in just 2.5 hours.
InterCityExpress Train Interior – It Wasn’t Very Full
Killing Time On The Train
Köln Hauptbahnhof
Walking out of the main station or Hauptbahnhof I quickly made my to my hotel for the next three nights, the Dom Hotel, located on just the other side of the Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral) from the train station. The hotel was branded as a Le Meridien property at the time of my stay, which is part of Starwood, but apparently as of March 1st, 2013 has left Starwood for renovations and ultimately becoming part of Althoff Hotels (a brand I’m not familiar with) in 2014. With that being said, the hotel is very old – supposedly opening in 1857 and is billed as one of the old grand hotels in Europe. It certainly has a bit of that feel with the grand staircase that runs between all of the floors, but at the same time the rooms didn’t feel old fashioned or super modern. Cozy, might actually be the word to use here.
Dom Hotel – Executive Room
Dom Hotel – Exterior
Anyways, luckily I had managed to grab an Executive Room with Cathedral View for only €138/night (thanks to the Starwood Best Rate Guarantee), since I wanted to guarantee that I would have something to look out my window at. Let’s just say I wasn’t disappointed. From my small little balcony on the fourth floor (top floor) I was able to look out to down below to Roncalliplatz which had the Cologne Christmas Market and the Cologne Cathedral right next to me. At night time when I would head back to the hotel to drop stuff off or change for dinner, the market and it’s Christmas tree would be brightly lit up and for some reason put a smile on my face. I guess if you’re going to be in Germany in the Christmas season, you might as well be right in the middle of it, right?
Christmas Market – Weihnachtsmarkt am Kölner Dom
Since my arrival was a little later in the day then what I had planned for I decided to just wander around to a few of the Christmas Markets that were within walking distance of the hotel. After first checking out the Weihnachtsmarkt am Kölner Dom, I wondered down the pedestrian friendly shopping district as it got dark and was quickly reminded how shops are closed on Sundays in Germany for the most part. Not much of anything was open, but after a while I eventually found myself at Neumarkt and it’s Christmas market: Markt der Engel.
There was a lot of the same type of stuff as the one next to my hotel, but that didn’t stop me from wandering around the stalls and taking it all in…and of course eating some of the delicious food. What did stop me however, was the rain and soon enough I was taking refuge in a subway station. Since I left the waterproof shell of my jacket back at the hotel I figured that I would ride the U-Bahn back to the Hauptbahnhof and my hotel. Since it apparently stopped raining during that short ride underground, I diverted back to the Christmas market outside my hotel to drink some Hot Chocolate (Heiße Schokolade) while listening to the band on the main stage play Christmas classics such as The Final Countdown and Eye of the Tiger. At a certain point I decided that I had enough of the cold and retreated to my hotel room and watched the crowd dwindle and the stalls close up for the night. Since it was apparent that I lacked sleep the other night I figured that I would just take it easy on this night and head to bed early. I wouldn’t want to throw another day away essentially…
Monday, December 10
Waking up this morning wasn’t a challenge at all. I got up with my alarm and actually felt refreshed – no doubt a product of deciding to turn in early the night before. I stumbled into the shower and was slowly waking up thanks to the hot water, when out of nowhere the fire alarm started going off. At first I was confused, probably still awake, and then someone came running down the hall knocking on all the doors with quick instructions to get out.
Seeing as I was in the shower, I quickly had to get dried off and throw some clothes on. Since I didn’t know what was going on, I grabbed my backpack which had all my valuables in it and my parka and proceeded to make my way to the lobby. Who cares if clothes burn in a fire, It’s a lot more difficult for me to replace my camera or laptop and the photos and other data that’s on them. Plus it would just be rather inconvenient.
There was already a good deal of people in the lobby, but the good news was that they weren’t forcing us to go outside. It also wasn’t but a few moments later that the fire department showed up and started running up the stairs to wherever the problem was at. Luckily about 15 minutes later the fire department gave the all clear and we were all able to go back up to our rooms. It turned out that a faulty sensor had gone off; I guess that just comes with the territory when you are dealing with a older building.
Today’s Wake Up Call Was Brought To You By The Köln Feuerwehr (Fire Department)
Since I was practically ready to go out the door I pretty much decided to just head over the train station to grab a quick breakfast. I usually do this most mornings when I stay near a large train station, since I can usually get a fairly cheap breakfast that consists of a pastry and coffee. Sometimes I’ll do other things, but usually I get away with only spending a few Euros this way, which helps out when I splurge on a nice dinner.
After breakfast at the train station, I didn’t have to venture far as I made it to my first stop of the day at Kölner Dom; when I first got off the train the day before I just couldn’t wrap my head around how massive the Cathedral is. It’s pretty much impossible to stand anywhere on the public plazas surrounding it and not have to look upward to see all of it; after all it was the tallest building in the world from 1880 to 1884. Of course once inside, it’s equally as massive, and there’s a good deal of stained glass windows and relics to check out.
Moving on, I headed into the Altstadt (Old City), as the Romano-Germanic Museum was closed, not knowing what I would find. As almost expected, I first encountered another Christmas Market. Very similar in terms of goods and foods as the other two I had found in Cologne, but I still took my time passing through. This one also had an ice skating rink and I thought about trying that out, but told myself that I would come back later to do that. I didn’t.
Altstadt Christmas Market
Eventually I made my way to the Rhein with still not much of an aim as to where to go. I pulled out my trusty Lonely Planet Germany guidebook and noticed that they had a Chocolate Museum or Schokoladenmuseum, located on the river front and not too terribly far from where I was. I decided to take my chances and see if I might luck out with it being open. Turns out it was, so after paying for admission and getting a square of chocolate I headed inside to see what it was all about. There were exhibits about the history, use and manufacture of chocolate, and even had a small tropical room (which I assume had Cacao plants in it). As you get to the far end of the museum you can go through a door and next thing you know you are in a miniature Lindt Chocolate factory. It’s actually interesting how it is all laid out in that instead of it all being behind glass you could actually wander around the equipment which had any openings sealed so you couldn’t exactly sneeze into the vat of chocolate. The only thing I couldn’t exactly figure out from my visit was how Chocolate was important to Cologne and why the small factory was a Swiss brand. Other than that, it still was a pretty decent museum and a good way to get out of the cold.
Schokoladenmuseum
Schokoladenmuseum – Chocolate Factory
Fresh Out Of The Molds
Did I mention that there was a Christmas Market right outside the Schokoladenmuseum as well? Yep, add another one to the list.
Since the weather hadn’t been cooperating much I figured that I would head to the nearby town of Brühl, where there is a castle/palace that looked like it might be interesting. I headed straight to the train station, purchased my ticket, found the platform and got on my train. After sitting at the platform for a bit eventually an announcement was made over the intercom (unfortunately in German only since it was a regional train), which I couldn’t understand. I pulled out my phone and just as the train started moving I noted that it said my train had been cancelled. My first thought was “How could my train be cancelled if I am on it, with other people, and we are moving?” I started to worry as the ride should have only taken about 12 minutes and 15 minutes in we had not yet made a stop, as I didn’t want to wind up having to pay a fine for having a ticket to somewhere other than wherever this train was heading to. I mean serriously, I thought I was now on the wrong train, despite that the platform display boards and my phone had said that this was the right one.
Well after riding for about 30 minutes we finally approached a station. I didn’t care where it was I just wanted to get off and figure out my way back to Cologne. Turns out we pulled into a town called Beuel, a suburb of Bonn. However, as I maneuvered to the doors we found out that they wouldn’t open. I couldn’t understand what everyone was talking about, but I kept hearing Polizei. After a few minutes folks started getting restless trying to get the doors to open; as a conductor came by it was evident that none of the doors on the train were opening. One passenger tried pulling on the emergency release and not even that seemed to do the trick. I was trapped.
After about 10-15 minutes, somehow the set of doors I was standing in front of finally managed to open, but it was only our set of doors. As I walked the length of the train to the station building I noticed that people were still behind most of the other doors trying to get out. My first thought is that there must have been electrical issues or something else of a technical nature that caused the issue. As I went to go check out the posted Abfahrtsplan (Departure Schedule) at the station, I noticed on my twitter feed that news stories started popping up about Bonn Hauptbahnhof having been evacuate due to a bomb.
Polizei In Action At Bonn-Beuel Bahnhof
Since my train was originally scheduled to go to Bonn via Brühl, it appeared that Deutsche Bahn decided to just reroute any train for Bonn through the station Bonn-Beuel in order to get the majority of people to their destination. People like me though pretty much got screwed. Even better was that there was no automated ticket kiosk at this station, so in order to get a ticket back to Cologne from here I would have to deal with the ticket agent inside. There was a train that was scheduled to pass through shortly, so I rushed inside only to find a line. Mostly of older folks buying timetable books or passes, which meant that none of the transactions were speedy. Eventually I got to the window and using my limited German skills managed to get the ticket that I needed to get out of here.
Unfortunately, right as I walked out of the station building, I saw the train I wanted as it pulled away from the platform. There was another one 30 minutes later, so I just wound up waiting around. A few other trains passed through, but since they part of the diversions away from Bonn, I had no idea if I could board any of them…I didn’t know what went where. My train eventually did come and I rode it back to the city, with my entire afternoon having been wasted.
After cleaning up for dinner back at the hotel I decided that I would try a Brauhaus for dinner since the area is known for Kölsch beer. I attempted the Früh Brauhaus across from my hotel first, but upon entering I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know if I needed to wait to be seated or just find a seat and after standing there for a bit I gave up to try another. I did a quick search and found the Peters Brauhaus which too wasn’t very away. Here, they did seat me and I didn’t have to try to play the guessing game, but since I was just one they sat me an already occupied table. I don’t complain about that, there was a table of three women that was obviously more for six people so I just sat at the opposite end. We all chatted for a little bit, they offered to help translate the menu, which since I know enough German food words I didn’t really need.
I wasn’t super familiar with the style of beer known as Kölsch, so when I walked in here I was expecting being able to get a huge stein of beer and having that beer hall experience. In the end it was as far from that as possible. First of all, the environment was more restaurant versus giant Bavarian beer hall (of course I wasn’t in Bavaria, so yeah) and the serving size of Kölsch is a mere 0.2 liters. It’s not exactly big and being a lighter beer, it doesn’t exactly take long for it to be gone. Although I will say that they constantly roam the restaurant and when they see an empty glass they will put another down right in front of you without asking. When it comes time for you to say no more, you simply put your coaster on the top of the glass and they will cash you out. After I pretty much ate my food and had one more glass I was out of there. Playing the game with the small beer glasses just wasn’t very fun, so I headed back to the Christmas Market outside my hotel.
Despite already having wandered around this market multiple times I figured I would finally try Glühwein which is essentially hot red wine with spices added to it. I figured that I would go all the way and add a shot of Amaretto to it…which turned out to be a mistake. Oh man, all that together was a flavor that I just wasn’t digging, but I wasn’t going to leave that cup full; I couldn’t let all the Germans see me wimping out. Plus, I had made the decision that I wanted to keep the mug as a souvenir…
By the time I finished my cup and purchased a few snacks I noticed most of the stalls were closing down. It was only 9pm, but I guess that was the magical shut down time. On top of that the wind had really picked up and it was starting to snow like crazy. With nothing else really planned, I just decided to retreat to the room, watch Ice Road Truckers dubbed into German and go to bed.
Tuesday, December 11
As with the previous morning, as soon as I got up and left the hotel, I headed to the train station to grab a simple breakfast. A coffee and a croissant was all that I needed and then made my way to the Romano-Germanic Museum, which on this morning was actually open. While not super-expansive, it did have a number of interesting artifacts from the Roman settlement that was in the center of modern day Cologne. Actually the really interesting part is the large mosaics including the Dionysus Mosaic, which remains in the original place where a villa had once sat. In the basement of the museum, it’s amazing how intact it is and how very little of it was missing. There were plenty of other parts of the old Roman settlement including statues, personal affects, and remnants of buildings on display amongst the various levels. Roman artifacts are always interesting, but after a while looking at what feels like the same statue twenty times over gets a bit tedious. Either way it was informative and interesting.
Dionysus Mosaic
Dionysus Mosaic – Rather Remarkably Intact
With museums out of the way early on, I figured I would head out on my side trip for the day: Düsseldorf. Since Düsseldorf is only a short 30 minute train ride from Cologne I figured I would at least ride the train up there and walk around a little bit and grab lunch. Disembarking in Düsseldorf, I started off by foot trying to make my way to the old city. Along the way I found myself in a farmers market, Markt am Carlsplatz, where I stopped for a quick lunch. There were a variety of stalls serving up everything from traditional German fare, Italian food, and of course a Döner kebab shop. I opted for the Döner Kebab shop and getting myself a kebab in a dürüm, which is pretty much a tortilla. All in all, a pretty decent and cheap meal.
Kebab Lunch
The market was pretty much on the edge of the old city, so from there it was a short walk before I was at the Rhein. I had no real objective, so just getting to the water front and taking in some of the sights along the way was really all that I did…eventually I would turn around to start taking my time to head back to the train station. Along the way I meandered through another Christmas market and stopped at a restaurant/bar (Hausbar) for a warm apple strudel and a beer. Just a way to kill a little bit of time outside of the cold.
Rhein Riverfront In Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf Christmas Market
Interesting Glühwein Stand In The Düsseldorf Christmas Market
Enjoying A Beer At Hausbar
I boarded another InterCity train heading back to Cologne, where I arrived 30 minutes later. As I approached my hotel I noticed how busy the Christmas market was outside, so after dropping my stuff, I decided to make my way through the three markets that I knew and sample things for dinner. I started out with a noodle dish called Schupfnudeln; basically big thick noodles, what I think was sauerkraut, and sour cream. It’s pretty filling for the large portion that you wind up with and after I finished up my bowl I made the short walk to the Altstadt Market. After walking around for a bit I didn’t feel like starting course number two, so I just grabbed a hot chocolate to enjoy as I walked around. And since this was the night of Christmas Market-ing, I took the U-Bahn over to the one at Neumarkt, only to turn around shortly there after to head back to my point of origin. The remainder of the evening was spent drinking cheap glasses of Früh Kölsch outside. There is one plus side to drinking beer when its only 19F outside: the beer never gets warm!
Schupfnudeln
I realize that I am way behind on posting these entries about my trip in December. It’s March now that I am posting these, but I have been very busy pretty much since the start of the year with work and am slowly working on churning these out. Hopefully I’ll have the remainder of these posts put up online soon!
