Europe 2016 ~ Day 5: Bonn & Cologne, Germany

Bonn, Germany

Sunday, April 17, 2016. Day 5. Arrive in Amsterdam.

This morning, woke up as usual at 6:15 a.m. ish and then went downstairs to the NH hotels breakfast area for a wonderful complimentary breakfast.

Surprisingly, the selection and layout here was much nicer than the one at Hilton Hotels. There was a huge selection of cold cuts, fruit juice (funnily, a “Multivitamin Juice”), bread, cheese.

I really enjoyed the cold cut meats and cheese. Mmmm. There was even a pâté-like sausage too and small delicate pre-spread toasts. So yummy and creamy! If we had even more time, I would have had more food to try out literally everything too. Hehe.

View from the hotel window. We were on the ground level

Today’s itinerary wasn’t very packed as we were moving away from Frankfurt, Germany to Bonn and Cologne in Germany to Amsterdam, Netherlands.

This was fine with me as I wanted a more carefree day with not a lot of running around from tourist attraction to tourist attraction. Heh.

First, to start off the day, we had a pit stop, where after paying 0,50€ to use the restroom, we got a 0,70€ voucher in return to use at the shop there.

0,50€ voucher that the machine spits out when you insert money to go to the washroom

Some of the food seen at the pit stop. What an amazing pit stop to offer hot food!

I spotted these big pretzels and bought them to try; I hadn’t tried any German pretzels yet hehe.

Big German pretzels!

Yum!

We used two of the vouchers to buy the Bretzel 2,49€ and ate it on the bus.

It was good! The Bretzel wasn’t too hard and it was just slightly salty. It was like a bun! 🙂

The pit stop that we were at

Next, we had arrived in Bonn, Germany. We saw the University of Bonn from the outside and took pictures outside of the house where Beethoven lived for the first four years of his life.

A glimpse of the University of Bonn as we walked through the path to get to our first destination spot

Heading towards Beethoven’s house

The Old City Hall of Bonn, called Altes Rathaus, was built in 1737/38, badly damaged by bombs in World War II on October 18, 1944, and reconstructed in its original form in 1949/1950.

Altes Rathaus — Old City Hall

Marktplatz, the Market Square in Bonn

A fountain in the Marktplatz

Signs leading to Beethoven’s house

Beethovens Geburtshaus

A photo in front of the famous composer’s house

A sculpture of Beethoven in front of one of the shops on the street

Famous composers on the path

Early morning and there weren’t many people here yet

Taking a photo at the Marktplatz

Taking fun photos on the staircase of the Old City Hall 🙂

photo on the staircase of the Old City Hall

: )

Backside of the University of Bonn

Passing by Bonn Münster, a Roman Catholic church in Bonn, one of Germany’s oldest churches.

Bonn Münster, one of Germany’s oldest churches

Sculptures depicting the heads of Saints Cassius & Florentius in front of the Bonn Münster:

I wanted to take a photo of the two heads by itself but these kids were playing on it.. actually making it a more interesting picture at the end of the day

A photo in front of the University of Bonn before we left

We took some more photos and then we arrived in Cologne in 40 minutes. The big attraction here was Cologne Cathedral.

Arrival in Cologne, right in time for lunch!

Cologne Cathedral straight ahead

First, we had lunch at Peking Am Dom (which you can read the review here). It was a nice lunch of Chinese food and then we walked around and took pictures of the Cathedral.

Lunch at Peking am Dom

What a huge and gorgeous cathedral it was! We went inside (admission was free to the public) and it was one of the largest cathedrals I’ve ever been to!

It’s hard to fit the entire length of the cathedral into one photo so I pasted these two together 🙂

Cologne Cathedral

The stained glass windows are also very magnificent. There were so many people inside taking photos too.

Inside Cologne Cathedral

I refrained from taking many photos while I was inside because I wanted to take it in with my senses and exclude photos.

The elaborate doorway of the cathedral

Meticulous

Afterwards, there were still 10-15 minutes before we had to meet up again with the group to get back on the bus.

People milling around Merzenich Cafe Haus

I spotted the word “cafe” down the street and headed there to see what it was selling.

There were so many people in front of Merzenich Cafe Haus! And their displays were so gorgeous. I had to try something.

Their strawberry-filled buns (called a Berliner) were selling at the front if the store and lots of people were buying them. I got two since two was 1,25€.

My mom pointed out the desserts at the front display and turned out the toppings were apple! We bought one to try and it turned out to be oh-so-delicious!

Delicious Streuselstreifen

It was called a Streuselstreifen. The pastry was firm and crunchy while the top was soft apples that weren’t too sweet. It was such a delicious dessert!!

To use their restroom, you take a small elevator down the stairs. So cool!

We made it back to the bus in record time and we made our way to the Netherlands. Yay!

After another quick pit stop for a washroom break, I tried the strawberry-filled bun on the bus. Yum! It was coated with sugars on the top and very soft. The strawberry jam wasn’t found until biting further into the bun though but I still enjoyed this delicacy. 🙂

The filling inside the Berliner

After going to the washroom and seeing this outside the restaurant, I had to take a picture with it!

The restaurant that we went into for a washroom break. We had to pay 50 cents!

Very soon, I saw the windmills in the open field and we had arrived in Amsterdam, Netherlands! Yay!

Landing in windmill county!

Clear skies

The day was coming to an end

Funnily enough, we actually stopped by the Amsterdam Airport in order to go to their supermarket to buy some things for dinner that night (no planned trip for dinner).

Bus at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

Heading into the supermarket to grab some goodies for the night

(Albert Heijn B.V. is the largest Dutch supermarket chain, founded in 1887 in Oostzaan, Netherlands.)

We picked up some Stroopwafels as it was recommended by our tour guide (and later by my friends who had visited Amsterdam too) and again some veggies to eat that night.

Stroopwafels!!! Found them!

Cheese

Holding a cup of Vlamsse Frites next to the Vlamsse Frites logo 😛

I spotted a Vlamsse Frites shop and immediately recognized their famous Dutch Fries and got their small size with mayonnaise.

I believe this was my first time eating Dutch fries and I fell in love with how delicious this simple creation was.

All it was were fries in a cone shape container with a big dollop of mayonnaise on top.

I tried my first one and the creamy and cool mayonnaise was such a great match with the crunchy yet soft potato fries. Yum!

That small cone of fries was finished all too quickly and I wish I had bought more. Have you had Dutch fries before? Leave your comments below if you have before :).

There were some airline models at the airport

Very quickly, we arrived at our hotel for the next two nights in Amsterdam, Hamptons by Hilton Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. Quick access wifi is always the best!

Nice, clean rooms but not that much space inside the room to place belongings or luggage (unlike all the space we got last night at NH Frankfurt Airport West hotels).

Tomorrow we go to see the famed tulip fields!!! I hope we get some nice photos tomorrow :).

View my posts from the other days of the trip: