A few weekends ago, I got up the earliest I’ve had to for some time on a Saturday to catch one of the first flights out of Stansted Airport to get to Cologne. The airport buzzes at that time of the morning with lots of people wanting to catch cheap flights out. When flying to Cologne, you end up at Cologne-Bonn airport and it’s easy enough to catch a local S-Bahn train to Cologne only costing a few euros.

The first thing you catch sight of stepping outside of the central station is the Cologne Cathedral one of the largest gothic cathedrals in Europe. With plenty of steps it seems to be a very central place where lots of people hang out.

You can even go up the tower, although you need to be ready to ascend the 500-something winding steps. Given how temperatures reached the early 30 degrees I can attest it’s not the easiest feat. The number of people blocking the path also demonstrates this.

It’s pretty funny to see how all the locals know to have fun with a spontaneous water fight bursting out of the fountain at the base of the cathedral. I even saw a number of poor tourists getting drenched in the process.

Speaking of fountains, at the local Lindt Chocolate museum, they have one of the biggest chocolate fondue fountains I imagine you’ll ever see in the world. They even had a staff constantly dipping wafer sticks and handing them out.

The rest of the museum is pretty interesting, going into a very in depth look at the history of the where chocolate comes from including a production line of chocolate blocks.

Cologne is located next the Rhine and plenty of bridges crossing it to the other side both the more residential and conference zone area of the city. The other side of the city has more of the interesting tourist attractions and plenty of the local establishments serving the local brew, Kölsch served in tiny 200ml cups though constantly replaced.

Cologne also has a ton of museums to visit ranging from an unsurprisingly, underwhelming mustard museum through to the very moving NS Dokumentationszentrum (Nazi Gestapo Museum). The Nazis took over this house during the war and was preserved to serve as a reminder of the actions and events that unrolled.