Day 13: Cologne Cathedral and Final Post!

 Day 13

We're pretty tired and starting to look forward to going home. And, we miss our cat, Cloudy, who is staying in a cat kennel for the first time. Hopefully he remembers us...

We have a 6 am flight from Dusseldorff tomorrow, so we'll be getting up around 2:30 am to start the lengthy process of checking our luggage and getting through security. German news sites have repeatedly covered the lengthy delays at Dusseldorff airport.

Before leaving Cologne, however, we wanted to explore the Cologne Cathedral. So, we decided to take a much later train to Dusseldorff and then have a relaxing afternoon with no more touring.

The Cologne Cathedral is unbelievable. It took 600 years to build, starting in the 1200's. Just incredible.

    Chest of the Magi: relics from the Three Wise Men are supposed to be in this chest.

    Known as the "Gero Cross," this is the oldest surviving sculpture of the crucifixion, from the 10th Century

While the ground floor of the cathedral was amazing, we were happy to discover the "Treasury," which was underground. There were multiple rooms of relics that were hundreds and hundreds of years old. The first room has various religious artifacts, including items of archbishops, such their scepters:

There was another room with old statues and relics from graves found during a basement project at the cathedral. There was yet another room that had clothes and tapestries from centuries ago. Lastly, there was a room that had a cane from St. Peter and chains that had bound him. This church has been around forever and has mind-blowing relics.

What a great visit to the cathedral.

We left the cathedral, gathered up our things from the nearby hotel, and caught a train to Dusseldorff. There was a loud and drunken bachelor party (at 2:30 pm) in our train car. They were singing and doing shots of some blue liquid. The bachelor was forced to wear a pink tutu, a pink cape, and a shirt with Cupid on it. They paraded him from car to car. It was a funny German tradition.

    This is the quiet moment before the bachelor party arrived...

We arrived at the Dusseldorff airport and scouted it out to make sure we're ready for tomorrow's early start. Rather than touring, we're taking the afternoon off to relax and gather up our strength. 

We did have lunch in the airport and I tried the Dusseldorff specialty: altbier. It is a dark lager with a slight hint of maltiness -- but otherwise it is clean and crisp like a lager. It was good.

Perhaps if we get our strength up, we'll do a pub crawl in the Dusseldorff airport... 😋

Well, that's it. That's our trip. This is the final entry. I hope everyone enjoyed traveling with us. Mom, we love you and wish you could have been here. See you back in The States!

Day 12: Unexpected trip the country!

Day 12: Burg Eltz (and some more kolsch) 😀 

When we woke up, we concluded that another day of drinking kolsch was not advisable. So, we decided to take a train out into the country to visit a lesser-known castle, called Burg Eltz. Neither April nor I had heard of this place before, but somehow Owen found and suggested it. What a great suggestion.

We had to take a high speed train, transfer to a regional train at Koblenz, and then take a bus to the castle. Along the way, we saw the ancient terraced wineries of the Rhine River that date back to Roman occupation before 400 AD. They make the most of all the dirt on these steep hillsides:

Our regional train dropped us off at Hatzenport, a small German village. We caught the 365 bus to Burg Eltz. Instead of taking the shuttle van to the castle, we walked down a steep road towards the castle, which is located in the middle of a river valley -- very safe from invaders. The first views of Burg Eltz were stunning:

When we were in Munich, we considered taking a day trip to Neuschwanstein, the famous castle that inspired the Walt Disney castle. But, we knew it would be hot and crowded, with a 10 day hour time frame. So, we took a pass. This out of the way castle is just as inspiring with relatively small crowds and a much more relaxed feel.

We waited in a courtyard for a guided tour in English. There were so many things to marvel at in the meantime.

The family that historically owned this castle still exists and owns it.

The tour guide took us through each room of the three residence houses. There were three branches of the family that each had their own residence. They had very formal relationships, including a lengthy written list of rules -- violation of which could result in punishments including being forced to live in the surrounding forest for a year... They didn't mess around.

Unfortunately, photos were prohibited in the residences. It's a shame because each room was loaded with things hundreds of years old. Admittedly, I did sneak a few photos, but they're rushed and not high quality...

    The armory was particularly cool. There were jousting sticks, suits of armor, crossbow bolts, and many other instruments of death. It reminded of us Ace Ventura saying "What a lovely room of death!"

    Halberds. These things are amazing. They can chop you like a battle ax, stab you like a spear, and hook you off of a horse. They were way scarier in person. To think that lines of people faced off with this kind of stuff is mind blowing. We've gotten soft...

The tour was wonderful. We also had a bite to eat on the castle's patio and had a wonderful conversation with an older lady from Frankfurt. She had never been to Burg Eltz. And, certainly she would have disagreed with our Austrian friends if she knew what they had said about her fair city. 

Needless to say, we paid the $2/person fee for the shuttle van back up the hill.

The train ride back to Cologne was beautiful. The Rhine River valley is spectacular. Maybe a Viking River Cruise is in order...

We got back to Cologne around dinner time. We relaxed a little bit and then I wanted to retaste Fruh on Day 2 to make sure it was as good as we thought. We were wondering if the initial excitement of drinking kolsch made us think that our first experience (with Fruh) was better than it really was. We tried Fruh again and it's that good. Yum!

In the meantime, we had also learned of another top kolsch brewery, Pfeffen. We found it nearby and tried it. Very, very good. It had some flavor, instead of being so crisp and clean like Fruh, but no unpleasant finish like Peters. We couldn't decide between Pfeffen and Fruh, so they tie!

    Beer coasters play a big role in the kolsch experience. The waiter makes pencil marks on a coaster to keep track of how many beers have been purchased. I pocketed a lot of coasters for the beer-making garage. April was not impressed by my sticky fingers...

April memorialized our final beer notes, along with a few of her own beer observations:

    Someone is missing her West Coast IPAs...

Day 12 was incredible. If you're in Western Germany, near the Rhine River, you really should visit Burg Eltz and maybe sample some of the white wines!

Tomorrow morning we set off for our final stop, Dusseldorff (where we fly out early the next day). Hopefully we'll fit in some time to explore the Cologne Cathedral.

Day 11: To Cologne

 Day 11: From Nuremberg to Cologne

We've enjoyed Nuremberg. It has a great combination of things, particularly the Bavarian architecture (they chose to rebuild in traditional style after 90% of the city was in rubble after WW2) and the fun, communal beer culture.

The market square outside our hotel is growing as we get to the weekend (it's Thursday).

But, it's time to catch our train to Cologne. We grabbed some croissants and coffee at a local cafe and caught a cab (the taxi stand for the market square was outside our hotel. Very convenient). The train schedules and process is becoming easier to navigate. Our DB Rail pass is great because we can hop onto any train (in first class!). For a few trains, we paid $6 for a seat reservation. However, we've concluded this really isn't necessary. You can sit in any seat and simply move if you're sitting in someone's reserved seat. We saw that happen regularly and it's no big deal.

We had a train transfer in Frankfurt and then it was a quick train to Cologne. Originally, we planned to spend a night in Frankfurt, but were dissuaded during our discussion with the two Austrians we met in Salzburg (they said Frankfurt was "Shit," with a lot of emphasis). Overall, it was about 3 1/2 hours from Nuremberg to Cologne ("Koln" in German).

    Some random lady in front of the sign.

We chose Cologne because it is the home of a type of beer called "kolsch." I've worked hard on a homebrew kolsch recipe and would love to experience real Cologne kolsch.

Immediately outside the train station is the historic Cologne cathedral. It is massive and historically important. There is scaffolding around parts of the cathedral and it appears they are power-washing it. The washed portions are a light gray. Here's the cathedral. We plan to visit it tomorrow:

We're staying at the Cologne Hilton, which is a very convenient, short walk from the train station. We've started finding hotels near the train station. It just makes everything so easy.

    Cologne Hilton

At check in, the hotel employees suggested four breweries for exploring kolsch: Fruh, Gaffel, Reissdorf, and Peters. Fruh was the closest, so we headed there!

They serve kolsch in .2L glasses. They're pretty cool. The glass bottoms are the thickest part, so you're supposed to clink them together at the bottom:

Fruh kolsch was great. It was clean without any bitterness or aftertaste. I hope to match it one day!

After a few beers, we decided to walk to the famous Cologne bridge where couples place a lock on the bridge to signify their lasting bond.

You can see how many locks have been placed here over the years:

After the bridge, we walked through the nearby shopping area. It is very busy. We needed to stop at "World of Sweets"!

Peters brewery was nearby, so we stopped off for brewery #2:

Neither of us enjoyed Peters. The brewery location was beautiful, with old world charm. But the beer had a little bite and aftertaste that didn't suit us. So far, Fruh is #1.

Next to Peters was Gaffel, another place recommended by the hotel staff. So, of course we had to stop...

    By now, at Gaffel, April is reconsidering humoring my beer search...

We both agreed that Gaffel was fine. It was better than Peters, but not a crisp as Fruh.

We walked around town a little bit and stopped for some gelatto. We thought we were done with the beer tour, but the Hilton gave us a few drink tokens for the hotel bar. So, we tried the Sion kolsch (Hilton has a business deal with them to only sell their kolsch. The hotel staff doesn't like this...).

Sion was about a good as Gaffel. So, Fruh is still on top!

    April had to switch to sweet wine... But, then, she went back in and got a Margarita! Go April!

It was a great day. Cologne is a much bigger city than Nuremberg and lacks its Bavarian charm. But, it was great to see what real kolsch is like. I don't think that I am currently able to brew anything as good as Fruh, but my recipe may hold up to the rest!

Tomorrow, we'll have a full day in Cologne with no traveling. We haven't yet decided what to do. We'll figure it out in the morning.