Aachen

Aachen is a small town about 80 kilometres west of Köln, right on the border with Belgium. I had been told that it was a beautiful town, and worth looking at. After breakfast at the hostel, we programmed the 'town centre' of Aachen into BOB (our sat nav) and set off.

The day was bleak, grey and rainy. So was the place where BOB took us. (sometimes I wonder if BOB has her own weird sense of humour..) However, the town centre of Aachen is not the 'Altstadt' centre -the centre of the old town. So new co-ordinates were put in, and off we went. It wasn't far, but the difference was incredible!

We were lucky to find a park (the last weekend before Christmas) and, with 2 hours on our parking ticket, set off into the Altstadt. The town was really worth visiting.

The Christmas market sat on a hill from the centre of the old town, down to Aachen Cathedral. It was grey, but with the lights of the Christmas markets and the festive spirit of the locals, it was a lovely atmosphere - as you can see in the photos. We cruised the markets, had a look around the township, and enjoyed a really good sausage in a roll for lunch.

We visited the cathedral and saw lots of differences to the Dom in Köln.
Cameron especially wanted to take a photo of this skull on a tomb set into the floor. It came out better that I thought it would!


>

We got back to the car a little late (but no ticket, thankfully!) and headed back to Köln. We had a short relax at the hostel (watching the kids run around in the gardens, chasing rabbits).

Then it was off to Andrea and Baden's farewell party. We met lots of interesting people (mainly other expats working in Köln, and some other friends that we already knew from Berlin, who Andrea introduced Nicole to on a previous visit to Berlin). A great evening, with loads of kids for the boys to play with and lots of intersting adults for us to chat to.