Karneval 1, sightseeing 0

Valentines day dawned and our breakfast in the Hotel Glockengasse was beyond great...for such a small hotel it's amazing! Great choices, eggs freshly cooked to order...super.

Only about 10 mins from the cathedral so we thought we would start off with that....

....hard to believe that this was hardly damaged during the bombings of WW2 whilst the rest of Cologne was more or less flattened! Such a tragedy.

Also a tragedy that we could not go inside....can you believe it was shut during the day because of carnival! I can sort of understand, with all those people and the fact some of them can get a bit worse for wear shall we say ;) but this was really the main reason we had decided on Cologne as my honeybee is researching why his churches alter is based on the one in Cologne cathedral.

Took plenty of pictures of the church exterior though!

What next?

Well we had wanted to visit some of the art galleries so we walked the short distance to the archaeology museum only to find...

...you guessed it.....closed!!! It turned out that all the galleries were closed during carnival!!!

These beautiful pieces were on show on the outside behind glass so apologies for the reflections.

Went on a long walk about after that and saw some great marching bands...

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..then stopped off for a few more Kolsch!

The round trays hold the full beer glasses and waiters will come round and replenish your empty ones ;)

Some street food...

Basically rosti potatoes which were delish...

... and a sweet Valentine cake each.

We ended the day with a romantic Italian meal.....we were very lucky to get a table in a nice little place just round the corner from the hotel.

Thanks for looking and I'll share the last day tomorrow.

xoxo Sioux