Our tour begins at 1pm so we have the morning free. We sleep in and miss breakfast. There is a second continental breakfast that goes until 10am. We barely make it. There is a small buffet and you can order bubble waffles too. Two orders of bubble waffles for us! They were topped with fruit, chocolate syrup, and whipped cream.
The mixology class starts at 10am so I miss the beginning. Everyone is crowded around the bar with Bloody Mary drinks. If you take all the liquid things that I hate and put it in a glass, you would have made a Bloody Mary. I decide to work instead of attending the class, but everyone attending the glass seems to be having a really great time. I grab my laptop and begin to setup shop.
Little did I realize that the President’s Q&A session was about to begin. The president of Riverside Luxury Cruises is sailing with us which is really cool. This session is to answer all of our questions about Riverside. We learn that they have a single-supplement program which is awesome and learn more about the brand. This cruise line started in 2022 so they are still very new. It was very helpful!
I returned to the cabin to find the window dropped down and Brian was in the shower. We were on the Rhine river and passing through the countryside. We’re approaching Cologne, Germany and our view becomes more and more of the city. The nice thing about river cruising is that some ports are very close to the center of town. We dock next to a popular walking path that is close to the main train station and the cathedral. Now, there are lots of people walking by and they are peeking into our cabin because our cabin is awesome. Brian went into the shower when it was rural and he didn’t realize that we had entered the city. He unknowingly walks out of the shower in his towel not realizing how close to the city center we were. I could literally high-five someone outside the window. We’re that close. Lesson learned.
It’s tour time! We meet outside of the ship and are escorted to the start of our tour. The tour starts in front of the Cologne Cathedral which is this massive building in the city-center. It’s a hub for activity. Our local guides are friendly and introduce themselves and then hand out virtual reality goggles. The tour is called Time Ride: Cologne City Tour for Time Travelers. The glasses have a red piece covering the glass part of the goggles and we’re told to keep it in when not using because they are sensitive to UV. Once everyone has their goggles, the tour begins. It’s a nice blend of hearing from one of the guides about Cologne and then we also watch a video with the goggles. We have five stops on the tour and for each spot we are positioned so that when we put the goggles on we see the same place we are standing in a different part in time. The first video shows us the area before the cathedral was started. We see two gentleman with a model of the church in a kind of rural setting. Each stop progresses up the timeline. We must be hilarious to watch because we each slowly move around in a circle to see the full view from our goggles. The animated people are funny in the videos! One of the last stops is during WWII and you see the destruction of Cologne in these images. Miraculously, the cathedral suffered minor damages despite being blasted several times. The surrounding buildings were not so lucky. The cathedral is also located next to the train station and it’s really cool to see the train station before the war. The old one looked so much better! This was a really interesting tour and I loved the blend of seeing things today and in the past. I’m a visual learner and this was my kind of tour!
After the tour, we have the option of walking back to the ship with a Riverside rep or explore the city on our own. We chose to walk around. We roam around the streets and find a bakery where we have classic German pastries such as a Bavarian pretzel and Apple strudel.
We go back to the ship. I get to work and Brian goes off and runs a half-marathon. I’m working in my cabin with the window open, and I feel somewhat like a zoo animal. Several people stop to take a peek into the cabin and many are startled when they see me inside. My favorite passerby was a little three year old boy. He’s on his bicycle riding past the ship. I hear the cutest “Hallo!” I say hello and waive back. Some people even stop to chat with me. They start with German and when I tell them that I’m sorry, but I don’t understand German they are quick to switch to English. Literally, every person I encountered in Germany also spoke English. This really surprised me. The Netherlands, I knew they spoke several languages, but I didn’t know that about Germany. Everyone was very friendly.
Dinner tonight was once again amazing. The asparagus soup was good, but had a little caviar in it. Super lux, but I don’t fancy caviar. My main meal of Sauerbraten is much more my style and dessert is a glass of mango deliciousness aka Mango Ripple.
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