Day 33 - Leaving Manderscheid and Cologne

Woke early (before 8) as we wanted to get to cologne early but before we did so we had a stop off to see one of the volcanic lakes in the nearby towns.

Although it took us a while to find despite it was huge we eventually did. We walked down to the lake. The water was lovely and warm, 21c apparently. There were a few people which we swimming which looked lovely but unfortunately we did not have time so we took a couple of pics and then got back on the road as we were still 150km from Cologne

 

 

 

Volcanic Lake

Back on the road we made it to Cologne in decent time and arrived the campsite which was right on the Rein pretty easily.
Once we had set up the van we had a quick bite to eat before making our way into the town. This proved to be pretty easy and we jumped on the tram and we in the town in no time.

Once in town we head straight for "the dom". It was very impressive and definitely worth a visit.

We walked to the top of one of the towers which involved a rather sweaty 500 stair climb up a spiral staircase. I did not make it to the top as I am not a big fan of heights but Rachel said the view was great.

That done we met up with Lexy and her boyfriends Chris and they showed us around some nice parts of the town which we off the beaten track. It was great to have someone local to show us around as we were able to get a proper feel of the city instead of just visting the normal tourists spots.

This took up most of the afternoon and evening and included visting some cool local bars and well as having a drink outside a church which has for some reason turned into a cool spot to hang out and have a drink as drinking in the street in Germany is not illegal. It as a wednesday evening and there must have been 150 people sitting around drinking and chatting.

All in all it was a good day and was great to see Lexy who I have not seen in about 6 years. We are very thankful for them to showing us around the city. Will upload some more pictures in a later post which I plan to do on the highlights of the trip.