Just Ride the clutch

Happy Thanksgiving!

After a period of rejuvenation, we were ready to hit the rails and the road.

• Koln is Germany's fourth largest city, and was almost completely destroyed in WW2. Cologne is the French version of the city's name, and has been adapted by the English speaking as well.
• Luxembourg is one of the richest countries on Earth, with one of the highest GDPs per capita.
  • This seems to make sense, as Luxembourg was eerily empty during the day; maybe everyone was at work?
• Lake Konstanz (Bodensee in German) is about half the size of the Bras d'Or Lake in Cape Breton and can be accessed through Austria, Germany, or Switzerland.

German pretzels and pastries, seems like a good idea.

​The first thing you notice on the skyline is the impressive Koln Cathedral. It dominates the skyline, is still the tallest structure in Koln, and is actually very scary looking. It’s Gothic style and dark grey/black façade is quite intimidating. It was once the tallest structure in the world.

Lindy and I had been to Belgium and the Netherlands before, but now we were headed to a new destination, Germany.
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Specifically we were headed to Koln (Cologne) for three nights and then to Dusseldorf to pick up a rental car. We arrived in Koln, a mid-sized city, in the early afternoon. 

View from across the Rhein

No sooner did we arrive in Germany did we start thinking about where we could get a traditional German supper, complete with great steins of beer. We were somewhat surprised to receive dinky little 200 ml glasses. Although the servers were quick on the refill, we wanted comically large, frothy mugs.

​We would later learn that these stereotypical German steins are more associated with Munich than with other parts of Germany.

Though I suppose it’s similar that you wouldn’t go to any place in Canada and expect to find the best poutine. It's hard hitting cultural learning if you ask me.

​Like many places in Germany, Koln was heavily bombed during the Second World War. It’s a healthy mix of historic structures and post 1950’s construction, we saw a lot of this walking around.

And we did lots of walking around, played a card game on the shores of the Rhein, and later grouped up with some people from our hostel in search of a bar somebody heard of. A bar where they have all-you-can drink beer from 9-11 PM! That got our attention so we journeyed out to find the place.

It was a fun night, meeting people from all over the world, as hostels often are an international melting pot. The bar played a mix of Western hits as well as the German chart toppers. Lindy and I were enthused to see that “Backstreet’s Back” was in the lyrical repertoire of our bar mates, so we all summoned our 1997 and sang and danced along

Koln was a nice city, and we're glad we went. We were there for three nights, and that turned out to be a good length of time.

Southward to Luxembourg we go!

We got our rental car in Dusseldorf, a short train away, and navigated our way to the autobahn to drive a few hours until our arrival in Vianden.

For the record, if you’re travelling with a group of people who are sharing expenses, a car rental is a no brainer. If you have more than two people it’s cheaper than the trains, you have “permanent” storage room for your stuff, you are on your own schedule etc… I could go on.

Another VW, diesel, standard. Good fun.

Vianden, Luxembourg. We were both excited to be in one of the European countries and cities we knew little about. It was a beautiful little town, though oddly empty, which would be a theme for much of our time in Luxembourg. We didn’t see many people.

The town was centred around a castle, which has foundations from the Roman empire over 1,000 years ago. Since then the castle has changed hands multiple times and had many additions over the centuries, it was even partially demolished in the 1800's before they realized tourism would be a thing.

We took a fascinating walk through the castle, trying to imagine all of the people that had passed through the same walls…. Cool stuff. On our walk through we came across a room that was set up for a huge dinner party, we have no idea what it was for, but would see more of it later that evening.

Once we found lodging and settled in, we saw a huge crowd of sharply dressed people walking up towards the castle, presumably for that same event set up we saw earlier. All day we were thinking to ourselves how cool it would be to go to a party in a castle.

So we thought to ourselves,
"What the hell, why not?”

Creepy, desolate, medieval town.

Unfortunately you couldn't see the illuminated castle through the fog.

​We got on the nicest, cleanest clothes we brought with us and ended up successfully merging in with the crowd, snaking up towards the castle.

It was a night of whimsy and merriment. At the end of the evening, Lindy and I were asked to be joint rulers of country of Luxembourg.

Actually, we just kind of looked sullenly out the window wishing we got invited, it’s fun to dream though.

What we really did was take a night time walk around the town, which was a little scary. We had a large castle illuminated on our left, as we walked through a empty town. You could hear a pin drop it was so quiet.

​The next day we went to Larochette, another small castle-based town, where we got to use our tent for the first time! See, we didn’t bring it for nothing. We went on a big hike around the local woods, saw big fields, and neighbouring towns.

​ However, that day didn’t start so smooth. Click here for that --> ​

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​Lake Konstanz was next on the docket. A haven for cyclists where you can bike around a beautiful, enormous lake.

​We had a great day for biking, so we pedaled our way from Lindau, Germany to Fußach in Austria, stopping for a beer and desert in Bregenz along the way.

By this point I’m also beginning to get the knack of driving standard and looking forward to driving through Liecthenstein and to Munich

Next entry we’ll hike the cloudy Alpine mountain of Rappenstein, drink in the experience of Oktoberfest, and begin our foray into Eastern Europe. We'll also become friends with goats.

Augustiner Festhalle. About 6,000 people drinking. Imagine this multiplied by about 10 to 14, that was Oktoberfest.