Weekend trip to Cologne and Aachen

Due to bad weather, my weekend plans were canceled. On an impulse I decided to go to Cologne for the weekend. I took the early morning train to Utrecht, then the Intercity to Cologne. I arrived in Cologne just after 11 am.

The big tourist attraction in Cologne is the Dom, so I started out by seeing the interior. For a cheap 2 euro surcharge you can climb one of the towers up to a viewing platform, 153 meters over street level. There's a very good overview of the city from up there, and the city is surprisingly big. Cologne is the fourth largest city in Germany, and from up in the tower you can see buildings as far as the eye can see.

The Cologne Dom is the largest Gothic building in Germany. This, of course, means lots of nice gargoyles to look at. I had a very good time checking them out through my telezoom.

Next I decided to walk around for a bit and find my hotel. I had booked a room in advance in what turned out to be a very good location - 15 minutes or so from the Dom, and close to lots of shopping areas. I stayed at the Astor & Aparthotel. This was next to the Hohenzoller Ring, which is more or less a restaurant/entertainment street in Cologne. Since this was a weekend, I only paid 75 euros for a single room, so it was not expensive for the location. It was very nice to be able to just stop by the room and dump shopping bags before going out for more shopping.

I ended up spending far too much time at the Globetrotter shop. This was something I'd been wanting to go see since before I moved down to Den Haag, as this is supposedly the biggest outdoor store in Europe. I ended up finding lots of cool stuff there that I know I can't get in Holland, but space constraints restricted what I could buy then and there. Some of the stuff I probably only need in Norway anyway, so I may just as well buy it at home. Prices for the quality gear seemed about the same as in Norway anyway.

I went over to the Seilbahn to enjoy "The most attractive view of the city". It wasn't all that much, really. I walked up there to "enjoy the view of the Rhein", and that was a pretty boring experience as well. Once the I had taken the gondola to the other side, I found out that there was no quick and easy way to get back ot he city center from that side, so I had to take the boring gondola ride back again. Good thing it was only 1 euro each way. Had to struggle for a bit to find my way back to the city center, as the subway map the tourist board had given me was different from the one on the subways (some trains were cancelled for part of the distance so I had to change a couple of times to get to the stop next to my hotel).

By now, after all that shopping, and after losing a lot of time on the gondola, all the museums were closed. After a quick dinner at a restaurant, I went back to the hotel and fell asleep right away. I had had to get up at 05.30 to make my connection from the Hague to Utrecht , so that was probably the reason why I collapsed so early.

Sunday morning I woke up early, had a nice hotel breakfast and went for a walk in the city to look at the sights. I like to get up early for sightseeing like this because it lets you see things before the crowds arrive, and it also helps you spot little details that are lost when the streets are full of cars and people. I also find it helps me get to know the city better and it helps me calibrate my inner compass for determining where things are in the city.

There were a few museums I would like to see in Cologne still, but they didn't open until 11 or so, so I decided to jump on a train and go to Aachen to see the Pfalz - the burial ground for Charlemagne. Aachen turned out to be a very nice city, apart from the fact that there were street-merchants selling crap everywhere, and there were lots and lots of beggars. Almost more beggars here than in Oslo. I visited the Pfalz and also the Schatkamer where they keep the chest that used to hold Charlemagne's body.

After a couple of hours of looking around, I wanted to take the train back to Cologne to check up on the museums I missed before going back to Holland. This turned out to be a problem, since for some reason the track was closed between Aachen and Stolberg. This information was given out in German only, so I had to concentrate a bit to find out what they were saying. The Deutche Bahn wasn't too good at giving out information, so there were a lot of angry Germans waiting around for trains that never would leave the station. I asked around, but it seemed that other people didn't know more than I did. After waiting for an hour, buses arrived, and drove us to Stolberg, where we were supposed to get on a train back to Cologne. Only...there was no train. Lots of angry shouting back and forth between train passengers and DB-personnel led to there being a train - 30 minutes later. Not exactly my idea of how I would spend my Sunday afternoon, standing around a backwater station waiting for a train that may or may not come. At least I made it back to Cologne in time to catch my train back to Holland, but I missed my chance to do the last museums.

Maybe I'll see them if I go back again. Cologne wasn't really a good city for tourists, but for shopping it was excellent...so I will probably be going back. If only to get more stuff from the globetrotter store...

Pictures are here