Week 63: Koeln to Bonn by Bike

A little while back we visited the city of Bonn, West Germany's capital before the end of the cold war linked the two halves of Germany. Bonn is quite close to the city of Koeln (Cologne) and we thought that since they were so close and have a good train connection, that it would be nice to ride between the two cities.

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We started in Koeln and rode south, on the east side of the Rhein. The weather refused to cooperate the entire day and we ended up with 2 or 3 cloud bursts while we were riding. Not ideal, but better than pouring over the entire trip. The total ride was about 35 km (22 mi) based on the map, though we got a bit turned around just outside of Bonn when we couldn't find a way to cross a tributary of the Rhein, so it was probably closer to 40 km (25 km) total. 

Jason makes (very cute!) friends

Once we arrived in Bonn, we didn't have to wait too long for a train--maybe 5 minutes after we bought our tickets. From there it was about a 25 minute ride to Koeln. We dropped our bikes at the car, then walked around a bit. Koeln is the 4th largest city in Germany, and, let me tell you, on a Saturday afternoon in mid-July its shopping district is *busy*. It was a little overwhelming, since we are used to much smaller cities, but after taking a short look at the city's famous cathedral, we found a seat at a cafe and enjoyed a meal outside.

Inside of Koeln's Cathedral

With more rain in the forecast, we forewent a trip to the World Ballooning Festival, which we had seen last year in Echternach, and decided instead to go for another castle. We headed to Bourscheid castle in Luxembourg. The castle looks quite impressive from a distance, though it in more or less a ruined state (and has no place to get Kaffee and Kuechen!), with some restoration work having been completed since the 1970s.

Jason, an umbrella and a castle

Though there were no snacks, we did get a free English-language audio tour that was hosted by Victor Hugo and a couple travelling companions, who had visited the castle in the late 1800s. They told us about how the castle looked at the time of their visit and what renovations had been completed on the castle since that time in surprisingly good British accents for Frenchmen.

Bourscheid's Main Tower

After touring the castle, we visited the town of Diekirch, Luxembourg, which is home to a military museum that we had heard was very good and intended to visit, but we spent more time at the castle than we had originally planned, and so just wandered through town, had a small, late lunch and a cup of coffee and listened in for a while on a small festival, whose theme was related to WWII. We also saw this odd little gem keeping an eye on the town square. I felt much safer under his watchful eye as I drank my coffee.

This little guy makes sure you pay your tab