Easter in Köln

With about 4 days of Easter and businesses closed for 3 days of it, we wondered where we can go to explore. It would be nice to get out of the city and check out another where we've never visited. I was super happy that my sister, Michelle from London, was able to grab Ryan Air and fly down for a visit for Easter. Mind you, her coming on Good Friday and leaving on Easter Monday was no easy feat as transportation is limited on those days. A note to those coming into Karlsruhe, you will have to know someone, wait, or get a shuttle or taxi if you arrive/depart very early or late from Baden-Baden Airport on a major holiday here.

Ivana and I have visited most of the major cities such as Stuttgart and Frankfurt and wanted to try somewhere else. In comes Köln, also known as Cologne. It is a city of about a million and is famous for it's cologne water, eau de cologne as we know it now. Instead of taking the train there, as it was pretty expensive, we decided to use the Mitfahrgelegenheit site. This is a site that is essentially a car pooling site where people post where they are heading to and how many seats are available for a price. It's a great way to travel within the country without having to take the trains. It is also safe and cheap. Of course, people should always take the usual precautions. We were lucky to find 3 seats the night before and even luckier to have the same driver coming back :) He was super nice.

The drive down took about 3 hours. We busied ourselves by chatting and a few small naps in between. Our driver stayed awake with coffee after coffee. He was used to long driving as he is a truck driver by profession. We asked to be dropped off at the Köln hbf which was right beside the grand cathedral - Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom). It was the most beautiful cathedral in Europe in my opinion. Sure it's a gothic church and probably an in thing but there is this wonderous charm about it and it has such a presence wherever you go in the city. Whenever we weren't sure where we were, we looked for the church. Mind you, our hostel (Station)was just around the corner from it (hence our look out for the Dome) and it one that I would recommend for it's location and ok service. We were lucky to have passed by the church in the middle of midnight Easter mass and were blessed to be able to attend it. It was a nice mass. The Cathedral inside was just as grand as the outside and reflected the architecture of it's time. The acoustics were super as well.

Because of the holiday, we knew that shops and groceries would be closed. And only Saturday was the day to shop and do what you needed to do. And the other days, you have to look for what else you can do. Since Köln is such a big city with bus loads of tourists coming in every day (it seems), there were more things to do and some shops (mostly souvenir shops) were open. We walked around during the day and night and had the opportunity to even take the U-Bahn. Everything was pretty easy to use.

During the day, we took in the sights and sounds around the river. The people were relaxed and there were street artists everywhere. We went to the chocolate museum (my second so far) called the Schokoladen Museum. Here, you learnt about the history of chocolate and even got to see the process of it being made. It is great for those wanting to know more about how chocolates such as Lindt were made. And yes, you even got samples! There is also a store on the main floor that you can go to even if you didn't go and pay an admission fee. It also opened on Easter Sunday! Rare indeed!

Just when we thought there may be nothing to do on not only a Sunday but on Easter Sunday, we spent hours wandering about through the Antik-Markt (Antique Flea Market). I swear we could have spent hours as  the tents seem to go on forever. But we were only there for about an hour and did as much as we could. Michelle bought this cool old film projector with film rolls of children's stories from the Brother's Grimm like Hansel and Gretel. Of course, they were all in German but that was way cool! It was a good find. The seller said he got it from Eastern Germany. We found out later that it does indeed work but it was missing the glass lens! Doh! I am sure it will be easy to find. There is also lots of normal shop shopping for the shopoholics around Hohe Strasse and Schildergasse :) We also checked out a small amusement park. We didn't buy or do anything but have an ice cream. Most of the stuff was so expensive. A ferris wheel ride would have been 4.50€. Eek!

For dinner, we had a sushi craving! So we headed out to a sushi place that the hostel reception suggested but it wasn't open. There was another one nearby called Fisch-Hof and was run by this nice couple. The food was fresh and very good - highly recommend it. They even had shelves full of products that you could buy asian stuff like a mini-grocery store. So we got some snacks for the road home.

The city is just beautiful at night with all it's lights. We met a nice French man who gave us a quick tour on the other side of the river (where you look towards the inner city and the Dome). He told us to check out the Hohenzollern Bridge. That is the bridge where the trains run. There you will find the love padlocks. There are thousands and thousands of padlocks and every kind of locks that people put there when they get married or to show their love for another person. It's really a nice and cute gesture. Apparently, most of Europe does this but it was a first for me. But very cool.

Photos from Köln - album section