Cologne visit continues December 4th

After our morning tour, we walked to where the ship was docked in Cologne.  We had another great lunch and then headed back out in search of the quilt shops that were found by our tour director.  We found 1 of 3 and although it had quilting fabric, there was nothing that had to come home with us.  We spent some time looking for the second shop, but finally gave up and headed to a local bakery for tea and something sweet.

We chose these Berliners, which are much like our jelly donuts.  It was nice to warm up and rest for awhile.  From there we stopped by the Gnome Christmas market again.  

We watched several groups playing a game called ice stock curling.  

Looked like fun, but beer and heavy things being thrown around doesn't seem like the best idea.  By this time we had over 11,000 steps, so we headed back to the ship to rest up for our evening adventure, a Cologne beer culture and dinner tour.  Now you may ask why I did this since I rarely drink and never beer, but Jackie really wanted to go and it sounded like fun.

We were met by our handsome guide and walked to our first destination.  

The local beer is called Kolsch.  It is brewed only in Cologne.  It is a clear, top-fermented beer with a bright straw yellow hue similar to other beers brewed from mainly Pilsner malt.  The beer is served in 7 oz glasses to ensure the beer is cold when you get to the bottom.  Jackie had two beers in our first brew house, I drank half a glass and that was enough for me.  We went to three more brew houses before we called it a night.  I was content to just take a sip of Jackie's glass at those places.  

If you are a regular customer they mark on your coaster each time they serve you a beer.  As soon as your glass is empty they bring you a fresh glass of beer.  The local lore is that some of the servers will add an extra beer - that is his or her tip.  

Our walk was around a beautiful area of Cologne

We ended the day with almost 15,000 steps.  There is such a walking culture here, people of all ages are out  and about, and little ones in prams with think covers over them are a usual sight.  It's cold, but it is also bracing to be out in all that fresh air.