Cologne; Friday, 15 June, 2018

I’d stayed overnight in an airport hotel as it was a relatively early flight. After checking out I headed over the road to catch the bus into the central bus station and then change onto the Piccadilly line round to Terminal 5. However, on getting to the tube station the Piccadilly line was showing delays so instead I walked round to the Heathrow Express to get the free terminal transfer train instead.

Heathrow Express has recently installed ticket barriers, but not actually set up any system for getting the free transfer passengers through the system, so there was a long queue for the one member of staff who was letting people through as well as providing travel information. Consequently, by the time I got down to the platform I just missed the train and had a 15-minute wait for the next one.

Finally, at Terminal 5 I checked in and headed through into departures to grab some breakfast and wait for the flight to be called, which happened sooner that I was expecting. They were so efficient that the doors were closed, and the plane was ready to go 10 minutes before our scheduled departure time. We pushed back and then started a slow meander around the airfield before finally reaching the threshold of the runway 40 minutes after pushing back.

It was an uneventful flight, and I was hoping that was the end of the days issues, but no the baggage handlers at Düsseldorf airport took ages to offload the luggage and so by the time I finally got my bag I’d missed several trains. I finally got over to the train station to find that the train that had been due in 10 minutes time was delayed by 25 due to a signal problem, so I then spent another nearly 40 minutes waiting round to move. In the end it was 90 minutes after the plane landed before I finally started on my journey south.

Thankfully, once on the move the journey was smooth and I had a quick change in Köln onto the tram and over to my hotel where I checked in and headed up to my room to freshen up.

Having changed into something more suitable for the much warmer weather in Köln I headed out over to the riverside and was in time to catch the last Rhine river cruise of the evening.

Cruise completed I headed back into the old town to find somewhere for dinner that wasn’t showing the world cup, it took some finding, but I eventually found somewhere with a river view and good food.

I had a very nice dinner and then headed back to the U-Bahn stop to catch the tram back to my hotel and an early night.