Erin and I made it to Cologne on the ICE (high-speed train). I think the max speed it went when we were on it was a little over 100 mph, but it can go a lot faster than that.
We all got checked into our hotels and met up for dinner Thursday night. We took the recommendation of the reception desk at my hotel and ended up at this little Italian restaurant outside of the touristy area. It was so good!
Chuck and Chris enjoy a Weihenstephan, a nice German weizen beer (wheat beer).
June made friends with the waiter, Franco. At the end of the meal, he gave us all a shot of grappa on the house.
We were all pretty worn out after the traveling and the huge Italian meal, so we called it an early night and crashed!
Friday morning, we met up at the Dom (cathedral).
Cologne was bombed in WWII and the Dom was one of the only buildings that wasn't leveled:
We took the 509 steps up to the top (well, most of us did!).
Once Chuck hit these stairs, he had to bail... June made it, but was close to throwing up... heights aren't their thing!
The views from the top were very nice. We went back down and walked through the rest of the church. We picked a good time to get there... the place was getting more crowded as we were leaving.
After the church, we went to the Museum Ludwig. The museum has 20th century, contemporary and pop art. There is a section of Pablo Picasso's as well (which I dubbed the Picasso porn collection). I didn't realize Picasso had done drawings like those! I had only ever seen his earlier works.
After the museum, we had lunch at Fruh am Dom, one of the oldest bruahauses in Cologne, having also survived the bombings of WWII. It's a pub near the Dom that serves traditional German food and beer. The beer of Cologne is called Kölsch and is brewed by several companies in Cologne... we tried Sion, Fruh and Gaffel.
Here are some pics of Chris and Chuck and their traditional German lunches:
After lunch, we jumped on a choo-choo train and went down to the Rhine River.
Once we got there, June, Erin and I went to the Schokoladenmuseum (Chocolate Museum) while Chuck and Chris took a stroll around the area.
We got a few free samples at the museum... here's a pic of the chocolate fountain. This woman is dipping wafer cookies into the chocolate to hand out to everyone. It was so good!
After the chocolate museum, we stopped at a few souvenir stores and then had a beer at the train station. Chuck, June and Chris got on the road to Bonn. Erin and I walked around a bit more since our train didn't leave until almost 9pm. We had dinner at the Chicago Steakhouse.
We got back to Amsterdam close to midnight and Erin packed up her bags to head back to Chicago. The time went by so fast!
For more pics of the day in Cologne, CLICK HERE.
1 comment:
An Italian joint and an American steakhouse...what a treat for someone from Chicago!
Anyway, this is an excellent post.
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