COLOGNE | A WEEKEND AWAY

Hey everyone! 

I usually start my blog posts by saying 'recently I visited...' but I'm not going to lie, I visited Cologne in April 2017, deciding this is were we wanted to spend out long Easter bank holiday weekend. So it's been a while, a full year in fact. Nevertheless, my memory is still as vivid as ever with the help from the many photos that were taken, and a previously half written blog entry that I've decided to re-write before sharing to the world! 

We stayed in a small hotel, Hotel Alt Deutz, which was across the river from the main city. Meaning we could take a lovely little stroll across one of the many bridges every day, including the infamous Hohenzollern Bridge (also known as the one with all the love locks!)

After a short flight, we landed in Cologne, and navigated the trains to reach our hotel. Luckily we could check in early, so went straight to our room to abandon our belongings so we could head straight out and grab some food. We found a restaurant that looked over to the river, and grabbed our first taste of sauerkraut and bratwurst! (In the traditional setting, I might add) And of course, a stein or two of beer. 

I always say that the best way to discover a new place is to walk around, so that's what we did for the next three days. Though, after some food and a few hours walking we decided to head back to our hotel for an early night, seeing as we had been awake since the early morning travelling...

The next day we visited the love lock bridge of Cologne, where everyone writes their name on a padlock, adds it to the bridge and throws the key into the river below as an act to show that their love will never end. There where thousands of them on every single part of the bridge, in all different colours and all shapes and sizes. Both with our cameras in hand, we spent a good few hours strolling up and down taking hundreds of photos and watching people at new ones.

After this we decided to visit the famous Cologne Cathedral, and Germanys most famous landmark (according to Wikipedia!)

It's a truly beautiful building, with incredible architecture. The cathedral itself is close to the central station, so it's very easy to get to. You could stand for hours looking at all the details on each spire, or the carvings around each door.

The rain then decided to come down, so we took shelter in the train station for a snack and much needed coffee. Soon enough we were back out exploring the Old Town with its many side streets, grabbing pretzels, spätzle and of course more beer! Finishing the wet and windy day off with some ice cream... of course!


The sunset on the walk back to our hotel that night was beautiful, with the cathedral and the river creating a beautiful scene.

On our final day we made a last minute decision to visit the schokoladenmuseum, basically a chocolate museum that has partnered with Lindt. Meaning lots of free samples! Better then we were expecting, and you also got the opportunity to create your own Lindt chocolate bar. After eating too many samples, we made the decision to visit the onsite chocolate cafe, to eat yet more chocolate. Slowly but surely we then made our way back to the airport to catch our evening flight home.

Cologne is a perfect city for a weekend exploring, and definitely one that I will be back to explore some more.

Thanks for reading, xo

*As with all pictures featured on my blog, they are all taken by me unless otherwise noted. I use a Canon S120 and iPhone 6S.