It was winter 2005, and I was all excited flying for first time to Europe the flight started in La Paz next stop was Santa Cruz another city in Bolivia then Sao Paulo in Brazil, Frankfurt and finally reached Bonn- Köln airport after more than 24 hours, with my limited english I started my adventure... Luckily for me I had someone waiting for me in Cologne so I just needed to take the train from the airport in Bonn to the central station in Cologne.
Exiting the main station in Cologne the first I saw was a beautiful Cathedral in Gothic style.
I arrived in December and stayed 3 months so the first memories from Europe were from Germany, its impressive how good the Cathedral look nowadays thinking that the city was heavily destructed during the second World War.
Cologne hosts also one of the most famous carnival in the world, with a large tradition since the 18 century, which reaches its highest point at the end of February beginning of March with a beautiful parade on "Rosenmontag". I love carnival in Cologne and participated already 10 years :P
- Carnival impressions
Cologne is a vibrant city and has much to offer, while visiting Cologne if you are on carnival time the best parties are around Zülpicher Street, Heumarkt square and Neumarkt but definetely all bars and pubs have the right atmosphere on carnival time. Booking hotels in advance is the best strategy as most of them are fully booked one year before carnival, and during this period the most central hotels are also pretty expensive.
I´ve stayed in two hotels in Cologne during carnival: Maritim Hotel Köln and Radisson Blu, both offer a great stay are pretty central, clean and with acceptable prices.
- My Hotel room this year at Radisson Blu
Fortunately Germany has a very effective and reliable public transportation so staying in surrounding cities is not a problem I stayed so far in Troisdorf, Siegburg, Bonn and Düsseldorf. The only negative fact is trains and buses are totally packed with drunk clowns :D so if you are not used to it better take a hotel closer to the center.
Food in Cologne is never a problem, from 5 star restaurants for fine dinning to a delicius Dönner close to main station you can find almost everything..... I highly recommend the last option as turkish specialities in Cologne are pretty popular and very tasty. Beer? Of course Cologne has it :) just order a Kölsch and enjoy. For German specialities the most popular place i´ve been was called Früh am Dom very close to the Cathedral, and with large dinning rooms.
But if you want to find something familiar Hard rock cafe is a good option, if I am in the city you might find me there eating BBQ Ribs and drinking a "big kablue-na" cocktail (pretty unhealty option....) I go always once during my stay to get some charms for my bracelete collection.
If you are in Cologne you might like to visit some museums Cologne has a wide cultural offer, one I still want to visit is the chocolate Museum everytime I am in the city I plan to do it but so far without succes. If you want to take a traditional present maybe Eau de Cologne could be an option.
Carnival season in Cologne just started so.......Kölle Alaaf !!! :)