We had three nights in Cologne, an ancient city which used to be a Roman outpost. We stayed in another Airbnb place – this time with a guy called Dietmar, who was a lot of fun.

 

 

 

On our first night we managed to find a place which served sushi and curry, making both Reubs and I very happy!  On our first day we walked through the rain (one of only a few true downpours on our whole trip) into town, where we visited the vast Gothic Cologne Cathedral, where the remains of the three Wise men are supposed to be.

 

 

 

 

 

After that we went to the Roman museum – we were expecting a small museum but there was a large collection of relics found from Roman times when Cologne was a settlement called Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium- we found this really interesting.  That night Dietmar took us out to try Kolsch beer – we had a great night out with him and his friend Michael.

 

 

 

On our second day in Cologne we walked into town taking a different route, and stumbled onto a church which had Roman ruins in its basement! We explored here then wandered down past the river and back into town for lunch.

 

 

 

Here, we found the Lego store, which was a source of great delight for us. (We had been planning to go to Denmark to visit Legoland until we found out it was closed until March!)  The picture above is of people we made – two of them are supposed to be us. See if you can work out which ones!

 

 

 

After that we went to see the ruins of the Praeterorium, where the city’s governor had lived.  Our last stop for the day was the Ludwig gallery, a large modern art gallery that had a really interesting David Hockney exhibit as well as a substantial collection of other modern artists’ works.