We got up early on Thursday to spend the day in Cologne. It is one of my favorite cities we’ve visited so I was happy to go back. We showed them the Dom (including walking up to the top of the bell tower), the town hall, Farina Haus (where Cologne was invented!), visited the National Socialist Documentation Center, had coffee and apple cinnamon pancakes at Café Richard, walked along the Rhein, stopped in at the Nussknacker-Haus (they have beautiful black forest nutcrackers, Christmas pyramids, and cuckoo clocks), had a beer by the Rhein at Der Lowenbrau, had dinner at Peters Brauhaus (including kolsch beer), and walked across the Hohenzollernbrucke bridge (the one with all the love locks).
Most places we visited I’ve talked about in a previous post, but the NS Documentation center was new for Morgan and me as well. From 1935 it served as residence for the Secret Police for the District of Cologne and the Gestapo Prison is in the cellar of the house. There are more than 1,800 wall inscriptions in the cells that tell of persecution, torture and murder. It was so sad but also interesting. We haven’t made it to a concentration camp yet, so this is the closest we’ve been to the events of the horrors of the holocaust. I’d say it’s worth getting the audio guide (which can be in English), we didn’t and a lot (but not all) of the information was in German only.
Also, this was our first time using Airbnb – it worked out really well! We were able to get an apartment that slept 4 people just a couple of blocks from the Dom for less than half what we paid the last time we stayed in Cologne.
