We found this cool German town when riding the train back from Cologne last week so we decided to take a day and go back and see the huge castle that was there. Also, some pictures from mini golf!
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Duisburg and Köln
This weekend, I jumped on the train (a very long train) to Duisburg to visit one of the German students here and see where she lives in Duisburg. We were instantly greeted by her parents with a huge barbecue foll of pork steaks, bratwurst and kebabs. Once our plate was gone, her dad would shove another piece of meat on our plate. It was sooo much food, but so good to have an actual meal, living off salami sandwiches can get kind of old after awhile. Her parents didn't speak a ton of English, but it was enough to be able to communicate and joke around. After eating and taking some time to digest our food, our German friend Nena took us into downtown Duisburg and showed us a cool area of the city.There was an inland port that had restaurants and bars all along the sides, where we sat and had a drink by the water on a nice warm night.
The next day we hopped on another train to go to Köln (Colgone). As soon as we stepped out of the train station we were greeted by a huge cathedral called the Kölner Dom. It was the largest cathedral I had ever seen in real life and was amazing! We walked into the cathedral and saw some of the old staffs, old gold cups and other religious pieces that priests (I think priest is the right word) used hundreds of years ago. Then we climbed up about 500 stairs through a hot, and muggy spiral staircase to get up to the top of one of the towers and look over the city. The city of Köln is very unique compared to other cities in Germany, because no other city I have seen has such a mix of old and new buildings. After spending a few hours at the cathedral, we had a stereotypical lunch (beer and schnitzel) on the waterfront. Later after we fueled up with food we went to the Lindt chocolate museum and watched chocolate be made and molded. It wasn't all that exciting but at least there were samples and air conditioning. The last thing we did before we left Köln was go see the bridge. It is a tradition for couples to put a lock on the bridge whenever they get married, so we walked along and saw the thousands and thousands of locks that people put on there. It was really cool to see how many people had put locks on the bridge, and to see how old some of them were.
The next day we hopped on another train to go to Köln (Colgone). As soon as we stepped out of the train station we were greeted by a huge cathedral called the Kölner Dom. It was the largest cathedral I had ever seen in real life and was amazing! We walked into the cathedral and saw some of the old staffs, old gold cups and other religious pieces that priests (I think priest is the right word) used hundreds of years ago. Then we climbed up about 500 stairs through a hot, and muggy spiral staircase to get up to the top of one of the towers and look over the city. The city of Köln is very unique compared to other cities in Germany, because no other city I have seen has such a mix of old and new buildings. After spending a few hours at the cathedral, we had a stereotypical lunch (beer and schnitzel) on the waterfront. Later after we fueled up with food we went to the Lindt chocolate museum and watched chocolate be made and molded. It wasn't all that exciting but at least there were samples and air conditioning. The last thing we did before we left Köln was go see the bridge. It is a tradition for couples to put a lock on the bridge whenever they get married, so we walked along and saw the thousands and thousands of locks that people put on there. It was really cool to see how many people had put locks on the bridge, and to see how old some of them were.
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