Cologne

One of the many castles that line the Rhine
see all photos »

After our beautiful stay in Frankfurt we ventured up to Cologne via one of Germanys most beautiful and most tourist travelled roads - the Rhine. The road runs adjacent to the Rhine river. A spectacular river that winds and bends it's way along a gorge with gigantic and amazing castles protruding out of the cliffs every 100 metres. The towns along the river are as popular as the journey itself. So we decided to stop off at two very popular towns, the first was home to one of the greatest castles along the river (or so they said). We also found out it was home to one off the greatest strudles and chocolate cakes we have eaten in this little cafe we popped into while we were there. The second town was famous for its christmas market - and boy did it have a christmas market. The market covered the entire town and we kept getting lost (the food was great though).

The xmas market at Rudesheim
see all photos »

After our long trip along the Rhine River we arrived in Cologne and to our accommodation quite late and very tired. Unfortunate for us our hostel which was quite a nice place (and very expensive) was host to a grade 5/6 school group from England. Our first encounter with these delightful creatures was on the lift on the ground floor (we were staying on the 5th). A kid closed the doors on us however he shortly returned  and hopped out of the lift. We then realised that the little bugger had pressed all the stops. To make matters worse he was running to every stop and as the doors were opening he was waving. We finally arrived to our floor but realised we were placed on the same floor as the class.

Santa heading up the mountain
see all photos »

Consequently due to the teachers not controlling the kids and settling them till well after 01.30am We managed to get little sleep, and this affected our time in Cologne. We still did get swept away by the towns beauty though. Cologne is home to the biggest (and grandest) chathedral in europe and is also home to the biggest clock tower as well (it takes at least 15 minutes at a good pace to reach the top). After we ventured up the exchusting tower we headed out to the chocolate mususm but decided to buy a very rich hot chocolate instead of heading in. Finally that day we hopped on a very long train trip to head to our final destination in Europe, FRANCE.