Cologne, Koblenz – Germany

We arrived in Cologne in Germany on Tue 28 Sept mid morning having left the Netherlands behind. Then left the ship for a guided walking tour around the city. Guided walking tours are all planned extremely well on these cruise boats – each of us has a earphone headpiece which was given to us at the beginning of the trip and each time we head off the ship we pick up a radio receiver from reception ready to receive our running commentary from a local tour guide who meets the ship and is given a radio transmitter. This way they can be 100m or so in front and talking and with our earpieces, we can still know what’s going on.  Tour groups are commonly seen everywhere with earpieces stuck in ears listening to their guides!

Prior to leaving our boat, we are also each given a boarding pass which must be returned prior to the ship departing so the crew know we are all back on board. Haven’t had any losses yet!

The local guides are exceptionally well learned on their cities but often impart way too much information for us to take in. Many of us are now onto the ‘ABC’ part of our journeys – Another Bloody Church, Another Bloody Cathedral etc. We are all however still intrigued by the beauty of Germany, especially it’s quaint old style cities and towns along the river and being autumn, the wonderful colours in the trees prior to their losing of leaves. Many of the streets are cobblestone pavers laid centuries ago adorned with tiny shops selling any manner of things from souvenirs (of course!!!) to hardware items.  All the port stops along the river are each day usually filled with cruise boats and up to 200 people per boat all heading into villages and towns so tourism is a big business along the Rhine and Danube.

Cologne is infamous as the hometown for the Perfume Eau de Cologne and the good old 4711 perfume is scattered through every shop. An extremely large Gothic Cathedral is the centrepiece of Cologne and like many other cathedrals we have come across is under constant repair and/or renovation. The insides of cathedrals and churches along the way, as much as I rubbish it, are absolutely brilliant – very old, ornate artefacts, statues, memorials and tombstones are scattered throughout and each church has it’s own ‘wow’ factor.

The Rhine river runs partway through Germany to Koblenz where it meets the Basel river and from then on we travel onto the “Main” River (pronounced “Myne”) where we head to the “Main Danube” canal. This canal of 170 kms was totally man-made and completed in 1992. It comprises a series of locks, the 3 largest being 25m high each. Each of those locks has a water saving technique so only 40% of the fill of a lock is taken from the river above – a great way to conserve use of water as water has to be pumped to the highest point in this man made canal, from the bottom (of course!). It’s a fascinating canal, 2 areas of it actually flow OVER rivers with specially constructed canal bridges.