Autumn in Belgium and Germany – words and pictures. Part 3.

Moving onto Germany

We had really enjoyed our time in Belgium. Namur, Ghent and Dinant had been good places to visit. Added to that the property we had rented had been comfortable and well located for what we wanted to do.

On the way to our second property rental just outside the town of  Leichlingen in North Rhine Westphalia we had stopped off at the medieval town of Monschau, which I wrote about in Part 2.

Namur to Monschau had been about 80 miles, and then the second leg of our journey from Monschau to Leichlingen was an additional 75 miles.

Finding our accommodation which was set in a quiet residential area was easy enough. The place we had booked ‘ticked all the boxes’ for the remaining days of the trip.

A small town

With a population of less than 30,000 Leichlingen isn’t a big place. It’s probably best described as a medium sized town. The town is known as a centre for apple and berry growing in the region of Westphalia. Although we didn’t get to see a great deal of the immediate area it seemed a quiet and peaceful place and well suited to hiking and walking activities.

We particularly wanted to visit Cologne, staying at Leichlingen made for an easy drive into the city of about 20 miles or so

A selection of pictures from our accommodation are in the first picture set below

Click any image to open a picture gallery that can be clicked or scrolled though

Day out in Koln (Cologne)

We had wanted to go to Cologne for some time. Our prime reason was to visit the immense Gothic cathedral.  Its formal/official name is  Hohe Domkirche Sankt Petrus (or in English: Cathedral Church of Saint Peter)

The cathedral was declared a World Heritage Site almost 30 years ago. It’s also the most visited landmark in Germany with around six million visitors every year

Building work first started in 1560 and was completed in 1880. It’s the tallest twin-spired church in the world and the third tallest church of any kind. The cathedral was every bit as impressive as we had expected it to be. It’s a sight we think is well worth making the effort to see.

We enjoyed walking around Cologne and spent a good few hours wandering the streets and browsing the shops. There is no shortage of places to eat and drink and we did both whist there.

Cologne seems to be a fairly compact city, although in fact it’s the largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia. It’s also the city with the fourth largest population in Germany with around 1.1 million inhabitants.

It’s a city with quite a history.  On this occasion we were only day visitors, but as there are over 2,000 years of history to Cologne I would think there is enough to do for at least a couple of days there.

Chocolate museum

There are a number of museums in the city.  Other than the Lindt Chocolate Museum we didn’t get to check any of them out.

I gather there are also a few decent brewery/brew house tours in Cologne and I think one of those would probably be an ideal way to pass some time and get to see some more of Cologne.

We did a craft brewery tour here in Manchester earlier in the year and it was excellent and despite being Manchester residents we were introduced to places we had previously been unaware of.  

The chocolate museum was decent enough and apart from the samples of chocolate as we made our way round it was pretty interesting to read and learn about the cultural history of cocoa and chocolate.

I think if you were staying in Cologne and wanted to take in the major tourist sites, check out the cultural scene etc and travel to a couple of other places then maybe four to five days would make sense, and just for information, Cologne is about 21 miles from Bonn, 25 from Dusseldorf and 58 from Dortmund.

There are pictures of the cathedral, the chocolate museum and our general wandering of the Cologne streets in the picture set below.

Click any image to open a picture gallery that can be clicked or scrolled though

Wuppertal and the upside down monorail

Our last visit of this trip was to the city of Wuppertal, again still in the North Rhine-Westphalia, region. Wuppertal is the seventh largest city in the region and the 17th largest in Germany  (population of around 355,000).

Our main reason for going there was because we had read about the ‘upside down monorail’ or the Schwebebahn (floating tram). This is something that is described as being globally unique and it is a major attraction for the city.

Basically it’s a monorail that in addition to being used daily as part of the public transport system and carrying around 25 million passengers each year is suspended underneath tracks that run 8m (26 ft) above the streets and 12m (40 ft) above the River Wupper and that were first built between 1897 and 1903.

Once we had read about it we just had to go and see it (and take a ride on it) – you’ll find pictures in the picture gallery below

Click any image to open a picture gallery that can be clicked or scrolled though

End of the trip

There really is never enough time to do everything you want and it seemed that our time in Belgium and Germany had flashed by. It was another trip that we had really enjoyed together but it was also time to head for home.

Our drive from Leichlingen to Calais was around 280 miles or so and it turned out to be a routine and easy drive.

Good deals available

Inevitably traffic was busy around the Brussels Ring (the ring road that surrounds Brussels), but thankfully there were no delays. We arrived at Calais in good time to check in and visit the duty free shop and my wife managed to get a particularly good deal on some bottles of spirits.

As with our outgoing journey we were booked into the  Club Lounge. on the P&O ferry back to Dover.  I mentioned in Part One that for the extra £100 for the outward and return journey we think it’s worth it. The menu options were the same as on the outward leg and and the food once again was plentiful and tasty.

The journey from Dover back to the North West was dull but routine.

That’s it for this year

That’s it for travel this year.

Although having said that – just a little over a week after our return my wife headed off to the Lake District and based herself in Ambleside for what seemed like a very decent and enjoyable break.

I’ve seen some of the pictures and it looked superb.

2025

We’re not quite sure just what we will do in 2025 although we do have some firm plans and bookings made.

We have a couple of holidays booked together, first in Ireland and then later in Scotland. I’ll be away on another solo Iberian trip later in the year, I haven’t sorted the details other than to book the ferry tickets – I may do some of northern Spain and the Pyrenees in 2025.

We’ve got some other sketchy plans both for trips and travel together and for some solo travel.

Who knows – but there really is always somewhere new to see and  new experiences to have.