Weekend visiting Cologne & Bernkastel Wine Festival

Last weekend, Brad and I ventured out to the great city of Cologne, where we visited the Chocolate Museum and Dom Cathedral.  Cologne (or Koln) is about an hour and a half away from where we live.  Before we took off for our day trip, we moved into short-term apartments called the Weidenhof Palace.  We were only allowed 2 weeks on base to find a place to live, but are offered temporary housing off base until you can move into your house.  We were actually pretty excited to move into the apartment because now we have a kitchen and living room.  We have missed eating home cooked meals.  Brad whipped up a nice chicken marsala this week and it was delicious.  

Ok, back to our weekend.  We visited the Chocolate museum which detailed the history and production of chocolate.  All displays had english translations and it was interesting to learn all about the cocoa beans, where they were made, how they get processed, etc.  There was also a small rain forest inside and a huge chocolate shop.  Below are a few photos of the chocolate being made.  We actually got to sample the chocolate in the above photo.  It was delightful.  

After we completed our tour, we dined at the museum cafe, which overlooked the Rhine River.  We made sure to stop by the chocolate shop on our way out to purchase some chocolates for home!!!  

Next, we headed over the to the Dom Cathedral, which is a twin-spired cathedral that displays spectacular views of Gothic architecture.  The building on it started in 1248 and was finally completed in 1880.  The twin-spired cathedral rises above the city and can be seen for miles away.  

The cathedral was wonderful, but all the walking wore me out.  We decided to sit at a cafe that looked directly at the cathedral and enjoy a small snack and gelato.  The German's sure love their gelato!! They make it super fancy and add sorts of toppings.  There is a place in our village where Brad and I will live that puts it through a machine and makes it look like spaghetti.  We tried it out this week and thoroughly enjoyed it!! See photo below for my Erdbeer (German for strawberry) delight!!  I think Baby D enjoyed this tasty treat as well!

Sunday we slept in and then went grocery shopping on base to stock our small fridge.  The commissary is the grocery store on base.  It is quite a bit smaller than the one at home but has all kinds of food that we would find at our grocery stores back at home.  I brought my coupon box along for the ride in hopes of finding some great deals, but only got to use about 5 coupons.  Needless to say, my grocery bill was higher than my normal $30.  For those of you who know how obsessed I am with couponing, this was upsetting.  Couponing isn't the same here in Germany. :(

We drove back to our temporary palace and got ready for the Bernkastel Wine Festival.  We met several other military families on base and caravaned out to Bernkastel, which is about 30 minutes away.  Bernkastel is a picturesque little village that has a town square dating back to the Renaissance.  You can tell by the photos how charming the houses are!  We arrived and Brad and the others started the wine tasting immediately.  I started the water tasting.  German love to drink carbonated water and it is hard to fine natural water or water with no gas, as they call it.  We strolled around for awhile then lined up for the parade. Boy, do they love parades.  The parade lasted for over 2 hours.  There were many wine queens/princesses that were on the floats all holding their glasses of wine.  Many of them looked way too young to to drink.  However, if you held out your wine cup, you could get free refills.  Needless to say, the group was feeling great when the parade was over!



We finished watching the parade and decided we had enough fun for one afternoon.  We began our long stroll back to the car but got to enjoy another picturesque view of the Mosel River. It is the river that runs along Bernkastel and Traben-Trarbach. You can take a river cruise down the river and enjoy the view.  There is also a long bike trail that runs along the river that was heavily packed on Sunday.  The weather was a perfect 75 degrees and no wind.  There hasn't been too many windy days out here so far.  I will say, that is one thing I don't miss about Oklahoma!!!

We reached our car which was parked along the vineyards in Bernkastel.  They seem to go for miles and miles our here and are a sight to see.  Brad and I thought it would be fun to  take a photo in them!!  

On Monday we drove to Koblenz which is about 1 hour away to go to Ikea.  We went with a couple of other friends and we were on the hunt for furniture and our course storage, since there is no storage or closets in any of the houses here.  We had one successful trip and Brad is looking forward to putting it all together when we move into our house!! We had a wonderful Labor Day weekend, however; the only things missing were family, friends, and OU football!!! We hope to get some sort of satellite when we move into our house to be able to watch the Sooners from 3800 miles away!!