A Cruise on the Rhine

We had our first out of town adventure yesterday...still in Germany, starting at a city called Cologne (or "Köln" in German).  We took a train there in the morning, and got off at the wrong stop...there are several stops in Cologne, and we mistakenly got off at the first one we came to instead of the main station.  We realized our mistake, got back on the next train (which came in about 10 minutes), then ended up at the right station.  As you can see from the picture, once we came to the next stop, we knew for sure it was the correct station...it was amazing!

We walked straight to the river from the train station and bought tickets for a cruise down the Rhine.  We had some time before the cruise loaded, so we walked around a little, then sat down and waited by the river.

We loaded around 9:30AM and didn't get back to Cologne until about 8PM.  The cruise was really neat- we passed villages, castles, ruins, churches, countryside...a really scenic trip!

Our stop was at a town called Linz, and there was a flea market going on right where we dropped off.  My parents looked at a few possible purchases like antique dishes and an old clock from Holland (with me doing the communicating in German), but the only thing they ended up buying was a bratwurst.  

We heard there was a free castle to tour here, but it turned out to be sort of lame, more of a tourist stop with gift shops and restaurants than an actual old castle.  We did see a live glass-blowing demonstration that was cool though.

We only had a little over an hour at this stop before we had to get back on board and return to Cologne...the trip back was quicker going with the current.  We stopped in Cologne at the Dom Cathedral...it wasn't open to go inside that night, but just the outside was unbelievable!!  It felt like I was looking at something from Lord of the Rings...it almost looked fake it was so huge and intricate and incredible...it's hard to describe, and I'm not sure of the pictures do it justice, but it was just awesome!

Before we left Cologne, we picked up some train tickets there at the station to cover the rest of the traveling we will be doing next week with my parents (France, Austria, and Switzerland- in 5 days! more posts to follow after that trip).  After a quick stop in the train station at Pizza Hut (yep, we finally broke down and ate American food...most of the places in the station were American chains, although even for a Pizza Hut you could tell the quality of the ingredients was way better than American Pizza Hut), we headed home after a fun but exhausting day!