Day 05: Leaving Köln, Bonn and Schloss Drachenburg#

Leaving Köln#

We left Köln at about 10:30 in the morning heading towards Bonn. The aim of the day was to make it to the town Bad Hönnigen where we would be able to make Koblenz the next day. I felt sad leaving Köln; I really enjoyed the city and was warming to Kölsch in the end. I think there is something to be said about how sociable the drink made people.

The weather in the morning wasn’t fantastic, there was a bit of mysticism in the air and my hands were freezing. However, like with previous days, the myst cleared just before lunch time. For lunch the previous night I made myself a mozerella, olive and tomato sandwich – it was absolutely heavenly.

At around 13:30 we made it to Bonn. As it was a Saturday, there was a market on that was selling Currywurst and Brot! We didn’t really see that much of Bonn; I came away learning that it used to be the administrative capital of West Germany and it is the birthplace of Haribo.

^ I used the above image to represent our morning because I like how the Rhine is used for industry! This is something that does not happen in the UK.

Schloss Drachenburg#

Along the way we went to Schloss Drachenburg, it was essentially a wimpy home for a stock market analyst (Baron Stephan von Sarter). Today, it is unfathomable for someone to build a fake medieval castle that overlooked their old town. It’s not like you can imagine the “Techno Oligarchs” doing that today cough, cough.

After the Baron’s death the castle had a few inhabitants: it had been a private boarding school, an elite Nazi training centre and a training centre for railway drivers.

There was a room that had famous people across Europe pictured on the glass. My favourite individual was James Watt from Greenock!

I would highly recommend people visit the “castle”. It feels a bit strange, but it is beautiful and an amusing experience.