Koln (Germany)

    Following our 3 days in Amsterdam, we took a train to Koln Germany.    Koln, the third largest city in Germany, has an old beautiful twin spired Cathedral in the city centre.  We stayed at the Renaissance Koln Hotel steps away from a nice shopping and restaurant district.  Like Amsterdam, our plan was to stay in Koln for 3 days as well. 

    It was a little harder communicating, as English is not spoken as universally as it is in Amsterdam.  But through a lot of finger pointing and mastering some of the more important local words, like BIER (for Beer) we were able to get by.  And as we quickly found, no one cooks as well as the Germans.

    The first full day we spent at the Koln City Zoo.  Highlight of that day was at a  nice children's park in the middle of the zoo where Grandpa, in his attempt to talk to the 40th non English speaking German of the day, sat square in the middle of the biggest load of bird Schietz I have ever seen.  But alas, he had his trusty handerchief with him and was able to clean up the mess as best he could.  

    Later, however, his blessed Stonewall (Brett) cut loose with a massive sneeze and a forgetful Grandpa plucked  this soiled hanky from his pcoket to deal with the crisis.   I almost had to tackle him to wrestle that vermin infested hanky from his hand before he applied it to the angelic face of our little, innocent, Stonewall.

    The next day we took a train ride from Koln to Koblenz so that we could take a Rhein River cruise from Koblenz back to Koln.  Although it was beautiful, the weather was the worst of the trip but it was fun anyway seeing all the castles and beauty of the Rhein River Valley. 

    We had lunch that day in a  Koblenz Beer Garden at the famous 'German Corner' where the Mosel River and the Rhein River meet.  All in all a great day, our best in Germany.

    On the cruise, the boys played cards, did puzzles and bugged the locals.while dad, me and Kathy watched the countryside slide by to the music of American Show tunes.   Who cares that it was raining cats and dogs.  At the front to the boat, Bradley did an impression from the Titanic movie with his arms flying out like Leonardo DiPaprio did in the movie.