Room 526, Holiday Inn Cologne Airport, Cologne
Another day, another country.After a nice breakfast in our hotel in the suburbs, we climbed onto the coach and drove to the city. It was apparently one of Amsterdam's 165 sunny days today.
We passed by rows of narrow four-and-five-storey brick houses with elegant black balconies, many of them overlooking peaceful tree-lined canals.
It was a public holiday so the roads, bicycle lanes and tram cables criss-crossing overhead were mostly empty. As a result, we reached our destination quickly, and walked down to the canal where our airy glass-roofed boat was waiting.
We spent the next hour or so floating along Amsterdam's many canals, as the local guide spoke about the architecture of the city's 17th and 19th century buildings, and pointed out sights like Anne Frank's house and the Western Church, which was the largest Protestant church before St. Paul's Cathedral in London.
Eventually we stopped in front of the Gassan Diamond Factory, where we got to view different diamonds in different grades and cuts (including the patented 121-facet Gassan cut diamond). After free drinks in a shop selling Delft blue-and-white china, we left for the downtown area for lunch, stopping across from the Royal Palace (which in pre-Napoleonic times was the town hall).
Two hours later, we bid goodbye to Amsterdam and the Netherlands as we headed for Cologne, Germany.
We reached the hotel, which was in the outskirts of the city (near the airport in fact), slightly before dinnertime. After leaving our luggage in the very flowery room, we went down to the hotel restaurant for a group dinner.
I had a beer, followed by the standard three-course dinner comprising mushroom soup, chicken with fried potatoes and peas, and a dessert with raspberries, cherries and cream.
After dinner it was still reasonably bright, so we walked to the airport (where the train station was), and bought tickets to Cologne's central station.
The pride of the city centre was the great Gothic Cologne Cathedral, and after taking many photos of the dark intricately-carved façade, we spent a good chunk of time wandering among the many enticing shops nearby...and staring into their closed storefronts.
We didn't get back to the airport till 10.30 p.m., whereupon we got a lift back from the hotel van.
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