Cologne; Saturday, 16 June, 2018

I had a nice long lie in and a quiet breakfast before heading out of the hotel and over to the cathedral to pick up the open-top tour bus.

When I first visited Cologne 14 years ago they didn’t have any hop-on-hop-off tours, instead there had just been a 2 hour coach tour round the city centre. A lot has changed since then and there are now two companies offering the standard open-top double deck tours.

I’d chosen the City Tour as on a Saturday it ran two routes, with their Saturday only blue tour taking in more of the industrial and riverside parts of the city.

I did two full circuits of the blue tour, with the second circuit in the very comfortable front seat which had masses of leg room

I had a quick stop in the Hauptbahnhof for a quick late lunch and then headed back to the bus stop to pick up the red tour through the old town. I had done one full circuit and was on the start of the second circuit when it started to spit gently with rain. Thankfully the driver was clearly prepared as at the next stop he came up onto the top deck and pulled the retractable roof back across the bus, turning it into a closed top bus.

About 5 minutes later we were very glad the driver had made that decision as the skies absolutely opened and there was a torrential shower for about 15 minutes, one of those showers that there is no point in running for shelter in as by the time you’ve got to cover you’re already soaked through – and there were several examples of that visible from the bus.

We completed the tour and from the Hauptbahnhof I headed back to the hotel to freshen up before heading back out into town and down to the riverside to find dinner.

After a very nice dinner I had a bit of a walk along the bank of the Rhein before heading back into the old town and picking up the tram back to my hotel.