Bonus Brussels, and up the Rhine

In front of the Altes House in Bacharach, with an unusually tall man behind us.
Entrance through the fortified city wall of Bacharach.
On the edge of the Rhine, with our accomodations for tonight on top
Anything's funny after climbing 509 steep, winding stairs.
The oldest house in Bacharach. 1368!
We are staying in the castle on top of the hill overlooking the Rhine River.
This Cologne Gargoyle vomits ice.
The Grand Place in Brussels, Belgium.

Getting ready for Easter in Brussels... a big deal in Europe, and especially in the land of chocolate. Buy your kids "Godiva" eggs for Easter this year. You can afford one for each kid, maybe.



This statue is kept shiny by the constant flood of citizens and tourists rubbing it for good luck as they leave the Grand Place in Brussels.

In front of city hall
Sophie finally got her favourite German teen idol Manuel's autograph, after much pushing and shoving.

Manuel swamped by Germans who know who he is and fundys who have no idea why they are in this crowd.
Craig met up with some family friends in Cologne. (So did Ms. Vogt and Mr. Schmidt).
On top of the cathedral tower.

The spires of the cathedral tower above our bus and everything else in Cologne.

In front of the Cologne cathedral.

With sadness in our hearts we departed Bruges, so much sadness that I decided to take them to Brussels for one more taste of Belgium before entering Germany. The Grand Place was glowing with the reflection of the warm(ish) sun off of city hall. We made an important pilgramage to the Mannekin Pis to enjoy his irreverent thirst for life and it's resulting flow of joy. Wow, that's poetry in motion. While the little Mannekin can do this for free, we had to fork out 40 euro cents to do the same thing in Brussels.

We crossed over into sunny Germany, and made our way to its fourth largest city, Cologne. Famous for its toilet water (cologne?), this city also boasts an enormous cathedral that was built from 1248 to 1880. I hosted a guided tour and didn't suffer the wrath of the official tour guides who could stop me from unofficially guiding our group. We saw the reliquary of the bones of the three magi, and headed for the stairs. 509 of them to be exact. After our puny climb of the Bruges Belfry yesterday, we were ready for new challenges. Little did we know that when we arrived at our hostel in Bacharach, some of us would be staying at the top of the tower (the hostel is a medieval castle), thereby adding to the stair count.
We had a delicious German dinner of clear broth noodle soup, salad, schnitzel (pork or vegetarian), mashed potatoes with cheese or onion sauce, vegetables, steamed buns with vanilla sauce, mmm...

It has just been sun and low temperatures. Which is great for stair climbing. Tomorrow we continue our German adventure.