For my final day in Cologne, I am going to visit the final Christmas market that I missed out on yesterday. There is one market, the Harbor Market, that is down the river a bit from the others. I start out by walking through town down to the river, passing more beautiful old churches. I planned to stop at the Angel market and have a coffee and tree-cake for breakfast, but the market opens at 11, not 10, so I just keep walking. Harbor Market and Chocolate Museum I get to the Harbor Market at about 10:45 and wander around, waiting for things to open. The market is in…
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Cologne Christmas Markets
Today, we visit the Cologne Christmas markets. This is a long day! There are so many of them. I am staying on the west side of town, and almost all of the Christmas markets are on a straight path from here to the river. So I decide to forego the public transport and just walk from one to the other, seeing the sights of the city along the way. Cologne is much, much bigger than I expected. This is not a quaint German village; it’s a huge modern city. The buildings are tall. There are so many people. There is an abundance of restaurants and shopping. There’s also lots of…
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Köln’s Grösste Weihnachtsfeier
My first day in Cologne was a bit short because I had to get to Cologne, and that in itself is a bit of an adventure. I looked up train tickets on the Deutsche Bahn website, but couldn’t get them online for reasons. So I walked to the train station the day before to get the tickets. However, I didn’t realize that the automated ticket machines are specific to each train company. And so I ended up buying my tickets to Cologne through the SNCF (French) train line and not through the DB (German) trains. So my trains ended up being about half an hour longer each way, and I…
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Final Day in Luxembourg and Final Thoughts
My last afternoon in Luxembourg, I made my final journey to the Christmas markets and had my final takeaway fondue and gromperekichelchen. I finally tried a feuerzangenbowle. It was actually pretty tasty. There is a special mug with a little metal wire over the top. They balance a brown sugar chunk on the wire, then squirt it with rum. Then, they light it on fire, and the rum and sugar burn into caramel and melt into the wine. I think the fire part of it burns off some of the alcohol in the wine, so it’s not super alcohol-heavy. I sipped on it while eating a fondue and wandering the…
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Final Week of Classes
So this is my last week of classes and I haven’t done a lot of exploring. After getting back late on Saturday from Strasbourg, I slept in on Sunday and just hung out at the Christmas markets in Luxembourg. On Monday, it was pouring rain, so I thought I’d get on a train and get out of town for the day, but everywhere is at least a 3 hour train ride, not really a day trip. I probably should have stayed Saturday night in Strasbourg and gone somewhere from there on Sunday, but after being sick last week, I just didn’t plan my weekend very thoroughly. I’ve just been tired from…
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Strasbourg – Christmas Markets
Today I took the train to Strasbourg to check out the Christmas markets. Strasbourg is famous for their beautiful markets, so I am excited to check it out. Today is the only day in the 10-day forecast for Strasbourg with no rain. And it’s a Saturday. So I don’t anticipate I’ll be alone in picking today as a great day to visit. Arriving in Strasbourg Of course my train was delayed. There was a fire alarm and some damage inside a tunnel, attributed to a ‘malicious act’, so we were forced to take a roundabout way to get to Strasbourg and my 90 minute train ride became 2 and a…
