Wednesday 23rd September

Today we were leaving Cochem but we woke up to an atmospheric cover of either cloud, or fog, I’m not sure which. Throughout the early morning the castle kept peaking in and out of the light clouds. We packed up and headed for the train station to catch our train to Cologne. It all went smoothly and when we arrived our hotel room was ready for us to check-in, which was on bonus. We dropped our bags, then headed to Brauhas Fruh am Dom for our first experience of Kölsch beer. The beer is served in 0.2l glasses. The servers have a special carrier for the glasses and as soon as you’ve finished they come around and replace it with a fresh one. You signal you’re finished by putting your coaster on top of your glass. We had dinner booked for tonight so we had a light meal for lunch. Soup for G and a Halver Hahn for me. Everytime you get refilled the server adds a mark to the tally on one of the coasters on your table.

We had booked an English tour of the cathedral at 2 pm which was just across the square from the brewery. The cathedral is the tallest twin-spired church in the world, the third tallest church in Europe and the tallest cathedral. This gothic cathedral is also a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Shrine of the Magi was begun in 1190 to hold the remains of the three wise men from the story of Jesus’ birth. Construction began in 1248 to provide a suitable place for the relics and it was finally finished in 1880. The carved choir stalls, painted choir screens and most of the windows date back to the 14th century. .

After touring the cathedral we went back to the hotel for a bit of rest and relaxation. At about 5:30 pm we left to have a bit of a wander round town. They were doing some kind of works at the Rathaus so most of it was boarded up and we could only really see the tower. We wandered through Alter Markt and down along the river.

We killed some time people watching before heading for dinner at Brauerei zur Malzmühle. This time we were in for the full brewery meal. G had sausages and I had Rhineland-style Sauerbraten with apple sauce and dumplings.

Afterwards we walked off some of that food and beer with a stroll back through the old center and to the Cathedral which was beautifully lit up.

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Thursday 24th September

This morning I got up to do my 30 minute run before packing up to leave for Berlin. I did an out and back along the river. There were a lot of people out running. We had time for breakfast at the historic Café Reichard, which was right between our hotel and the train. We had hot chocolates which were a bit decadent for breakfast, and the eggs benedict. The train took just over 4 hours which was a nice restful start to our pre-marathon lazing around punctuated by carb-loading.

This post is part of NaBloPoMo. Check out San’s blog for all the details and to join in yourself.