Cologne

Well we got a two day stop over in Cologne on the way to Istanbul. We got a hostel near the main station, unimaginatively called 'The Station'. It was really nice, and the bloke who worked there was very eager to help. He had all the little phrases at hand, which somehow didn't seem at all natural, e.g. "Could you do me a little favour?" It sounded really odd when he said it in his heavy accent with little / no intonation.

We were staying right next to the Dom, or Cathedral to you lot. It was pretty nice.

I've been here quite a few times before, but always as a young kid. It was no fun at all! Inside is huge, and when I was a kid all I wanted to do was run around and touch stuff. Needless to say, my gran wasn't too thrilled by my desire to do this. As an adult, it was most interesting, and slightly annoying that kids wanted to run around and touch things in such a beautiful place. The structure took a mere 800 years to finish. Not bad considering each stone statue took 10 years to carve.

The Dom is really famous for this:

The Shrine of the Three Magi AKA The Three Wisemen (from the Bible). Their remains are in that shiny box, and people come from all over the Christian world to see it and think about what they want for Christmas.

The next day, we climbed the steps. All 509 of them! We got some good views at the top and we earned our beer and sausages. It was a hard slog, but it was good to get to the top. Here are some of the best bits.