3 things to do in one weekend in Cologne

Cologne is an amazing city, perfect to explore in one weekend and lots to see and do without spending a lot of money.

So what should you do if you only have one weekend in Cologne?

1. Visit the Cologne Cathedral

I fell in love with the Cathedral as soon as I saw it. It's a pretty special building and quite overwhelming from the outside. Cologne was bombed during the Second World War, but the bombs somehow managed to miss the Cathedral, I'm not sure how because it's massive and the centre of Cologne, but we won't dwell on that...

What I liked most about the Cathedral is that it's free to enter and wander around inside, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona was hugely expensive, so the free entry here was a great surprise. If you want to climb the spire shown here, you have to pay the princely sum of 3Euro, but you should be able to stretch to that, and you'll definitely stretch your legs with the 500 step spiral staircase to the top!

View from the top of the Cathedral

2. Eat and drink as much as you can

The food in Cologne is amazing, so whatever your budget, whatever your taste and whether you're looking to eat on the move or have a sit down meal, you'll find plenty to keep you full up.

My personal favourite was the hot roast pork rolls with friend onions that are sold through windows on the street. I had three in the space of one weekend. Oops.

We also had great breakfasts, weiners, sandwiches, schnitzels... you name a traditional food and we tried it. In one weekend. Gulp. Hic. Burp.

3. Visit the padlock bridge

Love makes the world go round (apparently, I think it might be something else) and you can feel the love around you on padlock bridge. Once upon a time someone must have been wandering over the bridge with their significant other and happened to be holding a padlock. Something must have compelled them to clamp the padlock onto the bridge railing, thus securing their love forever. 

Where this couple lead, others followed and now the bridge looks a little like this:

What to do in a weekend in Cologne

Guten tag!

I've been to Germany for the weekend and I loved it! Not only because I felt so bloody smug walking into the office on Monday morning and being able to say something interesting when asked what I'd done that weekend. It sure was a lot more interesting than saying I'd been sitting on my sofa watching old episodes of Airline and trying on old clothes I promised to donate to charity months ago but keep holding on to...

Where was I?

Oh yes. So if you're not familiar with the Skyscanner app here's one thing about it, it's bloody dangerous for your bank balance. You basically put in the airport nearest to you and ask it to find you the cheapest flights to ANYWHERE.

Turns out the cheapest flights from Leeds Bradford airport are to Dusseldorf in Germany. The Boy has never been so we booked those flights before the airline could change their mind with the prices (how annoying is it when that happens?)

Cue slight panic when we realised that there was a huge trade fair taking place in Dusseldorf which meant that we couldn't find a hotel room for less than £300 per night. Uh oh.

So we decided to take the train to Cologne and find an apartment there on Airbnb, my favourite website in the whole world. We found a great apartment right in the centre of town for around £45 per night I think. Bargain. Crisis averted.

 Hello Cologne!

More details will follow from the trip, but here's a few photos to show you around - come on!

So much fun and so much better than sitting on my sofa watching Airline all weekend...

Positivity from Pinterest

When you're alone and life is making you lonely
You can always go - to PINTEREST.
When you've got worries all the noise and the hurry
Seems to help I know PINTEREST.

The lights are much brighter there
you can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
so go - PINTEREST
Where all the lights are bright PINTEREST
waiting for you tonight PINTEREST
you're gonna be alright now
PINTEREST
PINTEREST
PINTEREST

OK I stole those lyrics from Downtown but they apply! If you're feeling down, head to Pinterest!

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/471118810990551739/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/302374562452692500/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/251286854181926045/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/329818372681081571/

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/35606653277321905/

Sunday Photo Album... On Monday Again

Oh who am I kidding? I'm never going to remember to post a photo album on a Sunday. I'm just going to call it Photo Album and not give it a day of the week.

I was just talking to The Boy about Zanzibar, so I fancied revisiting that photo album from my trip there in 2010.

For some reason we decided not to venture from Kenya to Zanzibar while we were both in Mombasa earlier this year. I think the flights were expensive and the bus would have taken DAYS so we decided to explore more of Kenya instead and save some cash.

I want to go back to Zanzibar for many reasons but mostly for this reason:

I can't lie. I'm changing the picture size on this album from medium to large on this one.

WOULD YOU JUST LOOK AT HOW BLUE THAT WATER IS???!

I only spent five days in two different parts of Zanzibar, Stone Town and Nungwi so I know there's plenty more to see but I really enjoyed it and respected the amazing amount of culture there is to see there. 

I hope you enjoy this album!

Not so keen on this fella... spider from Zanzibar

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh when's the next flight out there?

So we've fostered a cat...

I quite like cats, I don't know if I've mentioned that before...

I've really missed having a cat around the place ever since Catty was put to sleep back in March this year.

If it was up to me, I'd fill our house with cats. But it's not just my decision and we just weren't in the position to take a cat on forever, it seemed a big commitment at this stage of our lives.

So when we came across the cat fostering section of Leeds Feline Friends, a cat charity in Leeds, it seemed the perfect solution, we get a cat, the cat gets a home and the charity helps a cat but doesn't have to build a huge cat rescue centre they can't afford to run. Everyone wins!

We emailed them and a few days later had a home visit where we pretty much just chatted about cats for over an hour :) bonus!

A week later, Zuki arrived at our house:

She's 10 years old and has been living in a cattery for the last year after her previous owner lost his house. The poor thing lost her home and went from what I hope was a loving home to a strange small pen in a cattery surrounded by other miaowing cats. We're fostering her until a new owner wants to adopt her, but we'll probably have her for the rest of her life because there's a huge shortage of people who want to adopt older cats.

I personally love big, fat older cats. They're my weakness because they already have cat personalities and they're so stubborn that you know they won't change them. Zuki wakes up from her 18 hour catnap if we're talking too loudly and miaows at us in such a way you'd think she'd lived here forever. And we actually talk a little quieter. 

It makes me sad to think of Zuki living the rest of her days in a small unit with minimal human contact and not getting affection. I like to think we've helped one cat, but there are so many more that also need homes.

It's a nice feeling to know you're doing something to help, but to also know YOU get something out of it too :) A cuddly cat (that has very moody tendencies...) to come home to on a miserable weekday.

I think everyone should foster a cat Check out http://www.leedsfelinefriends.org.uk for details on how to foster a cat.

It's ok NOT to take risks in travel...

I was just reading this article about female solo travel and how the author, Shannon, didn't regret choosing not to go deep sea diving in Belize in a spot everyone had told her 'you simply HAVE to do this'. She chose not to for safety concerns, something just didn't feel right.

I can identify with that and I completely agree that you should go with your gut instinct on your travels and not do something just because some one else says you absolutely have to do it, dude.

When I was in Honduras, I visited this waterfall:

Pulhapanzak Waterfall, San Pedro Sula

It's a pretty big waterfall.

I was in charge of a group of Canadian tourists who were DESPERATE to get into the waterfall and all I'd been told was that the itinerary included a waterfall trip where you could go behind the waterfall.

Sounds fun so far.

What I hadn't realised was that the waterfall was over 40 metres high and pounded down around you, the spray hits you from so far back that when you get closer you can't see or hear a thing.

In order to get to the waterfall we had to jump into a rock pool and swim across a river, all the time with the deafening water tumbling around you. I'm not a strong swimmer anyway and I was getting a little scared (ok, a LOT scared).

It was my job to go into the waterfall last and make sure everyone was safe in front of me but at this point I was starting to panic that I couldn't do it. We all had to hold hands as we crossed the river at the bottom of the waterfall and we couldn't see a thing.

See this video for more details...

It was at this point I made the decision to turn back to dry land.

I have no regrets! I know I wasn't a strong enough swimmer and I had no intention of drowning in a foreign country. Even when everyone came back raving about the experience, I knew I'd made the right decision.

No regrets. Don't do something just because everyone else is doing it kids. It's not cool. Yo.