Overnight to Koln, Germany (also known as Cologne)

We just returned from a weekend getaway to Koln, Germany, a city about 30 minutes away by train.  This city has history dating back to the Roman Empire, and was the Roman capital of the region during that period.  Today, it is a large and bustling city, and is a significant train hub for the region.  The most famous thing here is the Dom Cathedral, which is immediately in front of the train station.

The following picture is a view from a cablecar ride over the Rheine River.  You can see the Cathedral's 2 towers looking over the city.

Our first stop after finding the hotel was getting lunch.  We found a nice little cafe nearby that made grilled hamburgers, and of course had the local beer in stock.  I selected the Gaffel Brewery's Sonnen Hopfen, a seasonal wheat beer that uses American Hops.  Citra hops from Oregon, to be specific.  It was excellent, I even brought one home with me.  Nice to see some German Braumeisters are opening their minds to using hops from outside of Germany in order to broaden their beer styles.

After lunch, we toured the German NS Dok museum.  NS stands for National Socialists, which was the political party that Hitler took over and transformed into the Nazi party.  This Dok Haus is where political prisoners were held, documented, and tortured before being sent to the concentration camps.  The NS police eventually became the SS under Hitler.  The rise of the Hitler Youth was also documented in great detail. This museum was both emotionally moving, and terrifying, all in one stop.  I might add that this museum was not listed on the tourism map of Koln  (my German teacher recommended it).  The website has a great online tour in English, if you are interested.

We moved on after the tour and visited a highly recommended brewery nearby.  Yea, we needed a drink after that tour.  So Paffgen Brewery, one of Koln's oldest breweries, hit the spot.  It makes excellent Kolsch style beer.  They also have great German food.  The glass was only 200 cl, so I had a few Kolsch beers there, making good use of my improving German "nach ein bier bitte"...

The next morning we had brunch at Richter's, a cafe next to the Koln sculpture park.  I had a Scion kolsch bier.  It did not compare to Paffgen.

After the brunch and sculpture park, we rode the cable car.  Of course Marissa is more pre-occupied with Tweeting, than taking in the fabulous views:

Much to our surprise, the cable car ride went over a nude swimming pool:

After the cable car ride we walked along the Rheine back to the train station to return home.  A nice little weekend trip only a half hour away.