Cologne and Koblenz - Part III

We took a Regional Express to go from Cologne to Koblenz. The trip took an hour. Last week when we went to Dresden, we sat on the second deck of the train and it was nice. So we climbed up onto the second deck again. Towards the end of the trip, someone came to inspect our ticket and informed us that we were in the First Class section. He pointed to the "1" written on the wall.

Train official: First class. That's why it's so empty.
Us: oooo sorry...

So we moved downstairs but we were almost there and had taken a nice nap on the large comfy chairs. Even though it was already 10:30am, there were still no one on the streets. I guess people sleep pretty late here on Sundays. We walked around the city. Koblenz is were the Mosel and Rhine Rivers met. This first picture is of the Mosel River. There were lots of ferries. We saw a Spanish one and a French one. This second picture is of a museum/boat/castle. They have a miniature armor of a knight on the boat along with a real horse and real pony. There were kids riding on the horses. Seems very popular with the kids.

After walking along the river, we came to a restaurant that was recommended by my guide book. It was a nice place. Service and food was pretty good.

This third picture shows both rivers, Mosel on the left and the Rhine on the right. At this corner there is a huge statue of Kaiser Wilheim (4th picture). By this time there were a lot more people around. Lots of families riding bikes and German tourists.

Across the Rhine there is a really big fortress, second largest in Europe. I wanted to take the ferry over and explore. But Jingwen wanted to take a ferry or train to Loreley Rock which is further down the Rhine and is supposed to be really, really pretty. So we went to check out the ferries but they all leave at 2pm and comes back at 7pm. We had to be back at Cologne at 4pm in order for Jingwen to make her train.

So at this point we decided to walk back to the train station to check out the train schedules. Something that we should've done before we left the station since walking back takes a while. When we got there it was almost 3pm so there was no way we could go anywhere else. So we walked back to the river and sat at a bench for a while before taking the train back to Cologne.

We decided that we would still go on a ferry down the Rhine at some point. It is supposed to be very beautiful, with vineyards and castles everywhere. We will probably go when we go visit Fan, my pen pal, who is in Bonn. Bonn is also very close by.

When we got back to Cologne, it was 4:30pm. Jingwen's train leaves for Frankfurt at 5:15pm. We wanted to climb the church since we didn't get a chance in the morning. Normally they open at 9am but the day we were there they opened at noon. There were many, many people also trying to climb up and down the church. The stairs were very narrow and twisted up. But we got up there in 10 minutes even though the sign said that round trip would take 30 minutes. The view was amazing. We only stayed for a little while and took lots of pictures. I went to see the bells while Jingwen left to catch her train. There were lots of bells in the church. The biggest one is huge, bigger than the Liberty Bell. I helped a couple take a picture.

After climbing down, I had to find a bathroom. Public bathrooms in Germany cost money. The one at the train station costs 1.10 Euros. I didn't even have that much in change so I went to find somewhere else cheaper. I came across a museum and their bathrooms were free.

There's a chocolate museum in Cologne but my train left at 6:48pm so I didn't have much time. I couldn't find it anyhow. My map from the guide book didn't show exactly where it was. So I just walked around the city some more and took more pictures. There were some ruins near the City Hall. People say that every time a hole is dug in Cologne, there's a very real chance of finding some ancient ruins.

At some point, I realized I was really hungry and went back to the train station to get some food. I got a bismark herring sandwich along with a bottle of Fanta. Bismark herring is a type of pickled herring that was supposed to be the favorite of King Bismark. Carolyn says she really likes it and recommended it to me. I didn't like it very much though. Tasted too fishy to me. Fanta is very popular here. It's in just as many places as Coke.

The train that I took to go from Cologne to Berlin is an Intercity Express (ICE). It's the fastest class of trains in Germany. It took only 4 hours. They have a digital display of the speed and the fastest that I saw was 250 km/hr. I was impressed. I had a seat reservation but it was in a smoker's compartment. A lot more people smoke in Germany than in the US. It would've been okay except the guy in front of me just kept smoking. He must have smoked a pack or two! I ended up moving to another compartment. The train has an onboard restaurant, music that you can listen to if you had headphones, and very nice bathrooms.

I got back to Berlin at around 11pm and go to the S-Bahn to go home. When I got off, I saw Jingwen. We ended up taking the same S-Bahn. Which was good since we had to wait a while at the bus stop for the bus. After getting back and showering, I slept at like 1:30am. I was so tired at work the next day...