Hallo Deutschland
Trip Start
Aug 06, 2007
1
20
47
Trip End
Nov 22, 2007
Cologne,
Germany
Sunday, August 26, 2007
I'm a few days late with this one but its the first chance i have had to get on the net, we haven't had any access for a few days.
anyway before i start i forgot to talk about the main sight we visited in Amsterdam, Anne Frank's house. for anyone who doesn't know the story of Anne Frank she was a Jewish girl from Germany who escaped with her family in the early years of the Nazi rein. Her father set up his business in Amsterdam but they relalised that they would get taken by the Nazi's so they created what they called the 'secret Annex' at the back of the house. 9 of them lived there in hiding while the Dutch workers bought food and supplies for them. unfortunately they were found out and where taken to Concentration camps in Poland where they all died except for the Father who survived the Holocaust. During her time in hiding and also in the camp, Anne Frank kept a diary which detailed her life. Her father later found the diary in the secret house and had it published which some of you have probably read, i haven't but now i probably will. I found this a very moving museum and found myself quite emotional knowing what these poor people had to go through, this story will continue for us when we visit Auswitch, the concentration camp in Poland where an estimated 1 million Jewish people died.
OK so now to Germany, we took a train from Amsterdam to Cologne or Köln as its locally know, pronouned kooln kind of hehe. The train was a pleasant 2.5hrs on an ICE train which is a quick smooth ride. Cologne itself is a nice city but with nothing much to see. after we arrived and checked into the Hostel we walked around and manged to find a mini Beer Festival where around 30 different Breweries sold all their different beers, mainly German was on offer but also a few others from places like Poland and Czech but we stuck to German ones. I think we tried 6 different beers and they were all very nice ones especially the Weißbier which translates to Wheat Beer, it has a high concentration of wheat and malted barley which gives it a cloudy look and a very nice taste.
The Hostel we stayed in was very nice and had a bar aswell, after the beer fest we went and sat in the bar and met some people from Spain and also the US, we all decided to hit the town and the group expanded to about 15 of us all from different parts of the globe, well this ended up being one very big night and we didn't get back to our room until 5am. We met some lovely local girls who took us to some local bars, it was an awesome night but not a very good morning. Vic kept trying to get me up as we wanted to go and see the sights but i was not very well, anyway eventually dragged my self out of bed and feeling very seedy we walked into the town centre and went to see the Cologne Catherdral which is one of the largest in the world, its a Gothic style church and is quite impressive. You can climb 500 steps to the top but i couldn't drag my hungover body up there.
The rest of the afternoon in Cologne was quiet, we went to a beer hall and had traditional Pork knuckle, saurkraut and mashed potato and we shared it with the wasps, one of the things i do not like about Germany, Wasps are eveywhere and i hate the stupid things, the european wasps that we know at home, well they come from Germany, what use do they have to the environment, none i suspect.
Tomorrow we are up early and of to a small village on the Rhein river called Bacharch
