Drivin' Adair by Bimmer 09: Germany, France and Austria 2007

May 2007 and we embarked on another trip to Europe. We landed in Frankfurt and picked up not only our rental car for the week but also an old friend from my teenage years who lives in England. We met at the airport and drove through Bonn on our way to our first stop for the night- Cologne (Koln).

The Hertz rental car, a Mercedes E Class, had Satellite Navigation otherwise I might still be circling around trying to find my way out of Europe's busiest airport.

We arrived mid-Afternoon in Koln and enjoyed the 75 degree weather on arrival. Above is the view of Koln Cathedral from our hotel. Our first stay in a Hyatt Hotel, chosen mainly for this view.

This is the Hyatt, seen from the railway bridge over the River Rhine.

The hotel featured a beer garden by the river and we enjoyed our first cold beer there, relaxing in the sun.

I had only been to Koln once before-on a train which stopped there for a few minutes to pick up more passengers on my way to Nuremberg. I only saw the railway station...

This time, with a lot of daylight left, we had time to cross the bridge and admire the Cathedral up close.

we also admired the head of the man who walked infront of my camera as I was taking this shot.

We weren't the only tourists looking up, of course.

After an hour in the square before the Cathedral we escaped the crowds and returned over the bridge to the Hyatt side of the Rhine
.

Barges and pleasure boats moved their cargoes up and down the river as we sat drinking more beers in the beer garden. We sat there until it got dark and all the lanterns in the trees were lit. Dinner with a view of the Rhine was enjoyed in the hotel's fine restaurant the Glasshouse where a Swiss chef treated us to some great cooking.

As we were both jet lagged we went to bed before midnight. Ciaran, my old friend, walked to his hotel in the city center and would meet up with us again next morning.

A room service breakfast with this view started our next day-a Sunday. The church bells of Koln rang out as we took a walk along the river afterwards, enjoying some gardens along the way.

We walked across the bridge this morning and stepped into the Cathedral, where flash photography wasn't allowed. There was a service in progress and the mighty organ played while the choir, dressed all in white ,echoed their voices through the vast interior space. I used my video camera but alas can't upload it here as it was in a non-digital format back in 2007. Next time!!

We stayed just one night in Koln before moving south along the Rhine to our next stop-one you are now familiar with- of Oberwesel. Along the way after leaving the Hyatt we stopped at the Deutsches Eck in the city of Koblenz where the Mosel and Rhine rivers meet. We enjoyed lunch by the river Rhine.