Cologne City Tour

We docked in Cologne in the morning and, after breakfast, it was time to go on the walking tour of Cologne. The highlight of this tour is the magnificent Cathedral.  You can't come to Cologne and not see it!!  The stained glass windows are just mind blowing.

The photos that I took don't really do it justice, but here are some views of the Cathedral and Cologne itself:

Spires of the Cathedral

Cathedral

Details over one of the Cathedral doors

Inside the Cathedral

Stained glass windows

Stained glass windows

Stained glass windows

Stained glass windows

Stained glass windows

Stained glass windows

Signpost in the square at the Cathedral

After our tour we went back to the boat for lunch, or you get the option to have lunch in Cologne itself. As you get free time in Cologne as well to visit some of the other places, another 'must see' is the chocolate factory and museum! It's just a short walk from where the boat is moored; in fact you can see it from the boat.  You can even get your own chocolate bar made for you and you can even watch it being made for you.  It's all quite fascinating.

How about this for a chocolate fountain? You even get a wee taste on a wafer biscuit!!

My own personal chocolate bar being made - sadly, it was eaten not long after I brought it home!!

We even had a little run on the tourist train before heading back to the boat to get ready for our dinner.  After dinner, we were still docked in Cologne, so we went for a walk and specifically to see the Hohenzollernbrucke Bridge which is a railway bridge that spans the river running through Cologne. This is where there are 'love locks' padlocked the whole length of the bridge - it's an amazing sight to see.  I intend doing a separate blog page with the story behind it all with photos.  Meanwhile though, here are some night photos that I took prior to leaving Cologne at 11.30 p.m. to head for Kinderdijk in The Netherlands:

It was a surprise seeing this above us!

This was to be quite a long sail as we weren't due to dock in Kinderdijk until 2 p.m. the following day. so the fingers were crossed again for a spell of good weather as we sailed further towards the final destination of Amsterdam, and we wondered who would be first to spot a windmill!!

Strasbourg, France

We had a little bit of a longer lie this morning as the tour for Strasbourg didn't leave the boat until 9 a.m. The boat actually moors in Kehl, Germany, and the coach takes you into Strasbourg where you are given the choice to then go back to the boat or stay in Strasbourg for the remainder of the day. If you do choose to go back to the boat for lunch though, there is a shuttle bus laid on to take you back to Strasbourg if you want to do that.  We chose to stay in Strasbourg all day.  There was also an optional extra tour today, which was an Alsace Wine Tour.

Strasbourg was very picturesque and, after we completed a walking tour with the guide, we decided to take a canal tour on one of the canal boats, which was really very good.  We also had lunch at a local cafe and we visited the Cathedral.

It was fun at lunchtime I have to say as the cafe we used was a small local one where the waitress didn't speak English and everything was written in French! We reckon it was the 'dish of the day'.

This is what we ordered ...

... and this is what arrived.  And very tasty it was too!!

Here are some photos of Strasbourg. I can certainly recommend just staying in town for lunch and a wander around, plus you can do some shopping here too!!

Strasbourg

Strasbourg

Strasbourg - the most photographed building in town!

Strasbourg

A small detail at Strasbourg Cathedral

One of the stained glass windows in Strasbourg Cathedral

Strasbourg Cathedral

Strasbourg

Strasbourg

All too soon our visit here ended and we made our way back to the coach for the short journey back to the boat. We were not in time, as usual, for any of the activities on board as we were getting ready for dinner, then we went to the fun music quiz night.  We really didn't have a hope of winning anything as a lot of the questions were to do with American music, however we did manage to score 13 out of 20 and we weren't last, so I think we done quite well!

We went back to our cabin fairly early that night and I done some hand washing.  There is a line in the shower that you can hang washing on, so that was one chore out of the way.  The boat does have a laundry service however, at more or less 2 Euros for each item of underwear, it was way better just to wash these things through myself!  The final game of the Football World Cup was being shown on TV so my husband was happy watching that while I got the washing done! Germany won the game and almost immediately we could hear people celebrating with the sounds of horns and fireworks outside on the riverbank.

We had been underway since 6.30 p.m. that evening and on our way to Mannheim where we'd be leaving in the morning at 8.30 a.m. to visit Heidelberg.