Germany Day 7 - Koln

This is what our tent looks like in the morning.  Mom, then Brendan, then Dad, then me.  Mom and Dad want to sandwich Brendan to give him extra warmth.  I want to sleep on the outside because I'm always hot.  Our sleeping bags are pretty warm and it was cool at night, around 50 degrees.  It was warmer in Koln than it was in Traben-Trarbach...and thankfully, no rain!

I'm up!

But Brendan is not.  Look at his drool.

This is our set up.  When we first got there, the road was muddy and it looked awful.  I wanted to leave, but we were able to find a dry patch - probably where someone had just left.  Thankfully, over the next few days, we didn't have any rain, so things dried out and it turned out to be quite fun at this site.  I have to say the bathrooms were much nicer and the hot showers were free.  

Time to get up!

Across from us there was family with puppies. Brendan loved playing with the puppies.  They were very cute and the kids who were there let us hold them.

There was a playground there too.

We had fun playing around at Camping Berger.

Riding the streetcar into town.  Fuzzy on board!

We rode this funny little train, the Chocolate Train Express to the Chocolate Museum.  It was a little cheesy, but gave us a good overview of town without having to walk.  And it dropped us off right in front of the Museum.

We rode the red route around town.

Not many people going there, but by the time we had to return the train was full!

At the chocolate museum.  A nice view on the river and uh...free chocolate?  Why yes, of course.  Can we have more??  

Fresh dipped.  Yum.

We decide to create our own chocolate bar.  It's 5 Euros, but that's about the cost of a gourmet bar in the gift shop.  And I would consider my bar to be gourmet.  We put marshmallows, rice krispies and of course, we are in Germany, so we put gummy bears!  And we chose dark chocolate.  After selecting the ingredients, we watch the lady behind the glass build our bar...and then 30 minutes later....

The finished product.  We cannot wait to eat it.

Looks pretty good huh?

Checking out the automated chocolate machine.  It goes on to wrapping from here.

Funny how the wrapping paper is designed.

All that gold paper for this one bunny.

We had lunch in the restaurant of the museum.  It was pretty good.  Then we had to have a couple chocolate desserts.

Mine was a triple chocolate delight.

Can't remember what this was, but it's filled with chocolate goodness.

Next door was the Olympics museum.  We didn't go in, but had fun posing as athletes.

Brendan's version of body building....

Crossing the little bridge back to the train stop.

Walking towards Old Town....good brothers.

I'm cool.

Laughing over ice cream by the river.

Lots of bikes...and then this guy, riding with a giant bear in tow.

Cute colored houses with the church in the back.

We returned to the campsite for dinner and then played soccer with a few boys.  They spoke German...luckily their Dad helped us get the game going.  He spoke some English.  It was really fun and I didn't want to leave the game for dinner.