Blair's Blog

Of course, I am referring to the Koln Dom – and the 533 steps up the tower to the viewing area.  After eight days in the Netherlands, we headed into Germany, to Cologne (Koln, in Deutsch – sorry, but I can’t figure out umlauts on my phone). This was basically a transit day with the aim of getting us back to France for our last few days of vacation in Paris.
It was also a bit rainy and grey, so a good day to make some distance. That said,  we did want to spend some time in Cologne, and see a few things.  We started out by taking the ‘seilbahn’ gondola from the north side of the Rhine to the south then walking about a large Park along the river. After the return gondola ride we drove to the center of the city.
We parked near the cathedral and walked a few blocks to the square. It was jammed with people – after touring a number of churches, we’ve seen some crowds, but nothing like Cologne.
We toured the inside first, then headed for the tower. 8€ for the family, and up we went. 533 steps for a 97m gain from the base of the tower. It’s quite the climb, with only 2 places where it is really possible to stop for a breather.
At the top, the view is fantastic, although constrained by safety fencing.

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We were at a nice little cottage last night just over the the German border into Belgium.  Unlike Holland, where it doesn’t matter what your destination is because you are practically there, in the Ardennes it’s a long way to your destination no matter how short the distance.

The other thing we have noticed is that Europeans rarely have any useable counter space in their bathrooms. It seems you are constantly juggling toothpaste and razor and soap and comb and anything else you need. The other odd thing was a lack of a mirror in some bathrooms.

And then there is the autobahn, what can you say? Even in a wacky French mini-minivan:

And, that wasn’t even the best road. That honour goes to this bit of highway:

This is a road near Monshau in Germany, near the Belgian border. It was fantastic, both going uphill and then back down. It would have been outstanding on the motorbike.

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Next stop on our European adventures is Germany. This was Dave’s request as he wanted to experience driving the Auto Bahn. So after leaving Holland I relinquished the wheel of our French rental car (a scenic Renault) for Dave to experience a road with no speed limits. Which in theory sounded good but in practice was quickly deterred by German road construction and the route into Cologne being detoured. As we have been learning on this trip you sometimes have to go with the flow. In our case we wound up taking the cable car across the Rhine and walking along the river where there were plenty of geological specimens to practice rock skipping with. Eins, zwei, drei … WERFEN!!

Skipping on the Rhine

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Sadly, not for the TT…  We were a week late for the motorbike racing. On the other hand, we were too early for the bowling.
After leaving our friends in the Groningen area after breakfast on Monday, we started to head south to our next stop in Assen. Brenda’s maternal grandparents lived in Assen, and their house is still standing. It is now a bowling alley! The bowling didn’t open until later in the day, otherwise we would have played a game in great-Oma Pilot’s parlour.
We walked through old Assen and found the church and Bartje. Bartje is a character from an old Dutch book, a small child from a poor family who is best known for his dislike for brown beans.  Anyway, it was very exciting for Brenda, as she remembered her Oma having a little a small statue of Bartje – now Brenda has one as well!

From Assen, we continued south to Holten, where we visited a Canadian war cemetery, then to Teuge where we found a memorial to an allied bomber crew that had crashed in the war. Eventually, we arrived in Arnhem where we had an invitation to stay with a cousin of Brenda’s mom. Romina and her husband Cees, have made us feel very welcome.

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