Rheinland, part I

The boys were out of school this week so we took a trip to the Rheinland/Ruhrgebiet. We lived in Bonn the first year we were married, and had never gone back. Plus, various people we knew from various parts of the world now live there, so we went a-visiting. (The most interesting was talking to a friend I thought was Chilean, only it turns out she's half German as well, and now lives here. I still understand Spanish, no problemo, but every third word out of my mouth was German. Not to mention putting everything into German word order. Argh.)

Anyhow, a few pictures:

This is the Schwebebahn, the hanging train in Wuppertal. It hangs and runs over the Wupper River. The only thing I know to have fallen out was an elephant. (What were those Germans thinking, anyway??)

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Rheinland, part II (mostly Cologne)

The last day it stopped raining so the pictures are better. When you walk out of the main train station in Cologne, the first thing you see is the cathedral. And really, it should be accompanied by Bach's Prelude and Fugue in B-Minor. And no, this picture doesn't begin to give you a view of the whole thing. You can barely see the main spires from this angle, but from the train station I can't get it all in with my camera.



Inside you can see lots of nice things.

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If you want to see these in a larger format, or more pictures like this, go to my photostream at flickr.

Schmap

Okay, this on line (free) tour book sort of thing just asked permission to include my photo of the Vienna Westbahnhof (train station). I've never heard of Schmap before (see here for the section on public transit, including my photo), but it looks like a nifty sort of guide book if you're going somewhere and don't want to spend a fortune on a book. Of course, that means you can't bring it along with you--but it looks good for some planning purposes. Maybe I'll look into this in the future.