"Sharrie's Cologne Transit" Cologne by Sharrie

Cologne Travel Guide: 1,607 reviews and 3,988 photos

COLOGNE is a city where we only spent a couple of hours passing through & the COLOGNE CATHEDRAL is the only site we visited on my 19-day tour around Europe.

Hm... a thought just came to mind. Have you had many of such trips? Just a transit or stopover? I had, especially in the United States. Airports are places I'm very familiar with. Spending more time than I care to remember! Delays, bad weathers & technical faults have all characterise long-distance travels. I've once been stranded at the Minneapolis Airport for at least 10 hours, without food, because my arrival time was midnight & that has thought me a great lesson about air travel.

Rule #1: Always bring food & drinks with you on flight, regardless of how long the flight is!!! (The airport was closed at that time & all flights were grounded due to the weather. Therefore, passengers who arrived earlier had taken up all the rooms at the airport hotels & it's just too risky for me to venture into the city all by myself!) My flight was originally destined for Toronto from San Francisco vie Minneapolis. But that flight took more than 15 hours in total due to the flight being stranded at Fargo for 5 hours before even reaching Minneapolis, & we were not allowed to leave the plane either! I was lucky because I'd brought with me a good book & a couple of magazines to pass those long hours. I've always travel with an MD player & a good stock of MDs; they are my salvation.

So, Rule #2: Bring along something to entertain yourself. It may just be what makes or breaks a trip. But, for many passengers on the flight, the frustration & boredom are just too much to bear. Frankly, one needs to be more conscious of his/her own emotional responses & take more care in keeping that sanity intact. There are many events in this unpredictable world to make you miserable if you are not at all prepared for them...

In this particular event, I was fortunate. Found out on my return that the airline had decided to compensate me for this ordeal. What a compensation too: a round trip to any destination in the world! So, the morale of the story? Travel with food, reading materials & whatever you deemed entertainment. And transits & stopovers may just be a blessing in disguise afterall :-)!


Facts about Cologne
Population in Cologne: 1 million.
4 Major Events in 1999:
Hosted meetings of :The European Council.
Conference of G8 Foreign Secretaries.
Kosovo-Stability-Pact.
Economic Summit of G8 States.
This in turn has made Germany's oldest city an important political center in Europe.

  • Last visit to Cologne: Oct 1993
  • Intro Updated Jan 19, 2003
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Reviews (11)

Comments (14)

  • Helga67's Profile Photo
    Oct 13, 2004 at 1:18 PM

    Will the cathedral still be that black or even more black. I will find out in December.

  • ginte's Profile Photo
    Apr 8, 2004 at 4:52 AM

    Cologne Cathedral impressed me most in this city. You seem to have not only bad memories from Airports:)

  • hunterV's Profile Photo
    Aug 6, 2003 at 1:40 AM

    I have enjoyed my stay in Cologne, too...

  • Imbi's Profile Photo
    Jan 11, 2003 at 6:45 PM

    very artistic comments and tips. nice pictures.

  • pepples46's Profile Photo
    Nov 20, 2002 at 6:17 PM

    the Pic from the Dom Portal is just breath taking..I love that gotic Style..tanx Sharrie, and by the way..632 years and in between a couple of wars, split of the church, and they simply ran out of Money..and skilled workers..:-))

  • KaiM's Profile Photo
    Aug 1, 2002 at 1:50 PM

    great info bout the cathedrale

  • richiecdisc's Profile Photo
    Feb 20, 2002 at 7:55 PM

    They were probably drinking Kolsch as they waited. ;)

  • aliante1981's Profile Photo
    Feb 13, 2002 at 3:37 AM

    I`m just planning a trip there!

  • maritagnes's Profile Photo
    Jan 6, 2002 at 11:07 PM

    Great photos of the Cathedral!! Hope to get there someday!

  • oja's Profile Photo
    Aug 23, 2001 at 1:10 AM

    A great take on things.

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