Day 3. Travel Koln to Hamburg

Today was a travel day. Our train did not leave Koln until 13:09  so we left our bags at the hotel after breakfast and walked out along the river Rhine we went as far as the cranes apartment buildings. There is quite a lot of traffic on the river freight etc. although the large tourist ships were tied up for the winter.  Cormorants were fishing in the river.

The best view of the Cathedral - from far away


Walking back, we went through several winter market areas, including a skating rink. Passing the cathedral it became evident that, regardless of the light, it is a miserable looking building desperately in need of heavy restoration.






We went on to the platform waiting for our train and wonder of wonder shortly before we left we saw the sun in Koln for the first time. It came out only for a brief period.

Sun on the nose

Thalys on a service to Paris

Sun on the nose

Train came in from Stuttgart about 10 minutes late. It was one of the early high-speed trains which was quite comfortable. I had reserved seats with windows together but it turned out that we had a compartment with the window seats. We had the entire compartment to ourselves for the full journey to Hamburg. We were picking up most of the lost time until we reached the outskirts of Hamburg where we eventually arrived 20 minutes late.

This was a first class balloon which made itself known to us


We had the entire compartment to ourselves

The autumn colours are still very attractive even though many trees have shed their leaves completely. There is a preponderance of orange, with some yellow and some green, along with the green grass. Many of the forests are attractive with carpets of orange leaves. I have noticed allotments in many of the cities we have passed through. These are in the outskirts where people have erected small cabins and are growing vegetables. There were cranes in several fields and we saw a large number of Canada geese happily cropping the grass.

Our hotel is close to the station and after a quick snack I will be happy to get to bed. 

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