I can’t say that Köln (Cologne in English) was on my top places to visit in Germany, but when the Erasmus program in the college over here advertised a trip there, myself and my roommate thought, why not?
We met on Friday near the train station in Utrecht and took a bus for two and a half hours to get to the city. By the time we got to the hostel it was quite late in the night, so myself and my dorm all agreed to have an early night (myself and my roommate were sharing a room with three other lovely girls)
As I never heard of the city before this, I wasn’t sure what to expect but turns out that Klön is the fourth biggest city in Germany. We woke up the next morning to (thankfully) beautiful weather.
Walking from the hostel to the city centre, the streets were already bustling with tourists. Our first planned excursion of the trip was a boat tour down the Rhine river. It was a lovely way to start the day (if a bit chilly!)
Afterwards we walked towards the cities landmark- the Dom Cathedral. I can’t even express how impressive of a structure this was. The Cathedral took centuries to build and you can tell why, with so much detail being put into every part of the stone structure. I spent a lot of time in Köln taking pictures of the cathedral from different angles or just craning my neck to stare up at it.
The tower turned out to be closed that day to the public because of some sort of protest going on nearby.
So instead, we got brought to the Triangle Panorama, which is a look out building that let’s you can see the city from a height. We took the elevator up to 25th floor and were blessed with the most incredible views. It’s safe to say we took a lot of pictures and for a while we just relaxed in the sun on the rooftop.
After we had some free time, so myself, my roommate and a some friends we had made on the trip, went shopping and got waffles (that was in the shape of the Dom haha)
The next day was our day to go home, so nothing was really on the itinerary for that day. So the few hours we had were spent wandering the city some more, getting some pretty good €1 per scoop ice cream and sitting down by the waterfront. A really simple memory but probably a highlight of the weekend.
Have you ever been to Cologne? Did you enjoy the city as much as I did? 🙂
Catherine Devane 