After our arrival into Cologne the previous afternoon and our first taste of German Christmas markets for this trip, we all enjoyed a not too late night. It was now the 10th of December (and 10 days into the trip) and this was the longest sleep-in I’d had for the whole trip but we were still up before 7am as Zinnia decided she wanted to wake up her big sister. It was well and truly dark and cold outside so we weren’t keen on being up early.
After our usual French pastries for breakfast, the previous few days we had to swap to German treats today. Anto and Alan went out to find some good snacks from the bakery not far from the hotel.
Off to explore Cologne….
It was finally light a bit after 8.30am so we were off to explore Cologne and of course check out as many Christmas markets as we could! It was 6 degrees outside, and the temperature remained that until the evening.
On our arrival into Cologne the day before, we’d notice that Moulin Rouge was showing at the theatre not far from our apartment, and did consider whether we should get some tickets for the kids to see it as Anto and I had enjoyed it during it’s Aussie run. We weren’t sure if all the songs would be in German, but it would probably translate OK.
We walked from our apartment down to the Rhine to check out the Cologne river views. Our first port of call was a wander across the Hohenzollern bridge for views across the city and excellent views down the Rhine and back towards the mighty Kölner dom. The bridge had the most locks on a bridge we’d ever seen (and we’ve seen a lot of locks on bridges!). The kids were playing a game to see how many they could find that were older than them.
Between their searching for ‘ancient locks’, Zinnia obviously had too much energy and kept trying to walk into bikes, which caused no end of stress for us. Despite it being a cool and grey day, Cologne offered some beautiful views.
We escaped the bridge without any bike vs Zinnia incidents and walked along the Rhine towards the Christmas markets, past Fischmarkt known for it’s brightly coloured houses and the many pubs that would be lovely on a warm Summer’s day (which it was not!).
There were many interesting and contrasting buildings within the area adjacent to the Rhine. The kids were more interested in running around every bit of grass they could find, burning off their morning pastries and German bread!
In the Old Town, the Cologne Rathaus, is a rather interesting building and there happened to be a wedding going on as we walked past, so we stopped for a quick squizz but it was adjacent to a Christmas market so guess were were off to next….
Heinzel’s Winter Fairy Tale
We happened to be next to the Heinzel’s Winter fairy tale market, which is known as the gnome market, due to the number of gnomes throughout the market. This was quickly one of our favourite markets with it’s gnome themed stalls and beautiful decorations. We’d been out walking around fairly early so the market was only just starting to open as we got there but quickly got busy.
The kids quickly found the ice skating and curling rinks, which had an adorable gnome chairlift running between them. We enjoyed watching that and jumping in the prop cable car to practice for upcoming cable car adventures. The kids were angling to go ice skating immediately and were not impressed when we said it would have to wait for another day……
The ice skating rink did look rather fun and there were plenty of glühwein stalls nearby with an excellent view of the ice skating action so we did promise we’d be back. We had found endless tasty treats at the gnome market but it was still rather early so we’d resisted buying too much, although Astrid got a good feed again wandering around scoring samples of many things!
Off to the Neustadt…
With plans to come back to the gnome market again soon we walked through the Neustadt (new town), with it’s very different buildings and many shops and plenty of lights and decorations. There were some rather cool shop windows, with animated stuffed tows that kept us enthralled for quite awhile!
Neustadt certainly had a different vibe to the old town and we could have happily done some shopping but we were on a mission to find our next market, the Angel market!
The Angel market
The Angel market (Markt der Engel) was in Neumarkt, and was you guessed it – angel themed! This market had the most beautiful lights. Even at 12.30pm the stars and fairy lights were already visible.
We very quickly found plenty of delicious food and drinks we wanted to try and much to the kids delight they were handing out taste tests so there was a bit of grazing…….
The market wasn’t too busy as it was early and we found a fair few things we planned to come back and purchase as we didn’t want to carry them around with us all day. This turned out to be a mistake as the market was a whole different level of crazy when we returned later that night!
Off to Brühl…
We thought we’d use the afternoon to visit the small town of Brühl, which is 20km south of Cologne and was meant to be rather pretty and also have a nice Christmas market. We could take the number 18 tram to Brühl, which left from near the Angel market. The tram was certainly an experience. It started out at normal tram speed with frequent stops, but quickly picked up to a rather pacy at least 80km/h or more!
The town is very pretty and we wandered through the streets checking out the street sculptures and pretty houses in the cobbled streets.
Once we got to Brühl first on the agenda was lunch. We’d found a German biergarten with good reviews and menu while on the tram. It happened to be past the Augustusburg Palace, which I wanted to check out anyway. The palace is rather pretty but isn’t open for tours in December so I’d only planned to walk through the gardens, which happened to be a short-cut to lunch.
Our German biergarten lunch was very good. Astrid was into her favourite German food – currywurst. Zinnia opted for a pretzel and Soren had some schnitzel. I just had some very good spinach and mushroom dumplings and Anto was in the German spirit with a big beer and also some currywurst. Our waitress gave us some good heads up on some excellent local wines and we all enjoyed a good meal and some indoor warmth.
It was a definitely a winner for lunch and a great way to continue eating our way through Germany…..
We had to head back into the old town to check out the Christmas market so the kids enjoyed running off some of their lunch around the palace.
We then explored the small Christmas market in the old town, in the main (pedestrian only) street, with it’s cute windmill.
There were more tasty treats and a kirsch glühwein which we decided we should try and we definitely needed to warm up 😉 Sadly, we were too full for all the yummy things.
By now it was after 3.30pm and all the lights were well and truly on, adding to the festive atmosphere…..
We decided to catch the train back to Cologne and the walk back took us past the palace again and past some giant geese that Astrid thought were hilarious!
By the time we got to the rather cold train station the kids were a bit weary from all the days walking and activity. Our train was chock full of teenagers (presumably coming home from school). By the time we got off in Cologne it was 4.30pm and rather dark.
Astrid and Zinnia voted they needed a late afternoon rest and were out like lights while Anto head off to the laundromat to deal with the next lot of accumulated washing. He apparently got several interesting chats with homeless people living in laundromats and also several police.
The angel market by night
We had wanted to go back and look at the Angel market by night and grab a few market snacks for dinner. The kids were not initially keen on waking up but in the end the lure of the market got them out the door into the dark and cold.
Anto was still out dealing with washing at the laundromat so the rest of us decided we’d walk down to the market, which was about 2km. Although we’d walked this during the day, it looked rather different at night.
The market was beautifully lit up and looked rather spectacular…….
We had arrived just after 7.30pm and it was incredibly busy. It wasn’t actually any colder than earlier in the day and the throngs of people made it feel fairly cosy.
We had scoped out several stalls that morning we wanted to revisit, but the number of people meant we entirely lost our bearings and it was hard to find all the things we wanted to revisit with all the crowds and dark.
The kids did get stuck into some reibekuchen (fried potato pancakes). We later declared this market’s not the best of the trip. Zinnia also conned us into an oreo and nutella crepe, which she thoroughly enjoyed! Anto had finally finished the washing and wisely decided to catch the tram to meet us (which was much faster) and got himself a bratwurst for his trouble.
The adults treated ourselves to a glühwein. Astrid and Soren, opted for a kinderpunsch as they hadn’t had crepes, and Soren accidentally smashed the mug and lost most of his drink all over his shoes not putting it back on the shelf carefully enough, and being a bit tired. This added to the list of Soren disasters for the trip. Cue very sad Soren and shoes that remained slightly smelling of kinderpunsch for the rest of our trip!
At this point all the kids all declared they were very tired (which we totally agreed with). It was now after 9pm and the temperature was dropping so it was a tram back to the apartment. We’d had a huge day checking out some of the sights of Cologne, having an afternoon in beautiful Brühl and fitting in trips to 4 Christmas markets. A pretty good effort for one day and only 3 exhausted kids and one smelling of kinderpunsch!
Up next…..
A day trip to Dusseldorf, Germany to explore the city, old town and of course plenty more Christmas markets and of course glühwein!
