h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So we treated ourselves to a weekend in Cologne with a slap up New Year's Eve dinner. "We" being Mr TC and me.

We arrived (by train) on Friday night after work and after checking in to our hotel we walked around the town, had dinner at a Spanish restaurant (food OK, but not brilliant, great decor, nice waiters) and walked slowly back across town. It was dry and only slightly windy and generally ridiculously mild for December.

On Saturday after a generous hotel breakfast we walked to the Cathedral for the meeting point for a guided tour. It was drizzling. It was so grey and foggy that you couldn't see the top of the Cathedral spires. Our guide was very jolly, though, and we had quite a lightweight tour with a rough history of the Cathedral, some squirts of Eau de Cologne, useful information about local heroes, the story of Aggrippina who acquired the City status for Cologne in 50 AD and the inevitable Ursula legend, rape, pillage and murder in Roman times and the Middle Ages and Why the Railway Station is Built Next To the Cathedral.

We were quite wet through after our walk round town, but not hungry, so we just stopped at one of the inns lined up along the banks of the Rhine for a bowl of soup and some bread and a couple of glasses of Kölsch - the local . We headed for the Cathedral - mainly because it wouldn't be raining in there and partly to try and catch a tour at 2 pm, only to learn that all tours for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day had been cancelled.

We took ourselves around the Cathedral until we were relatively warm again, had a cocoa with rum in a café nearby and then went up the main shopping streets. The streets were teeming with tourists and people out for walks, but to our frustration the shops were shut. I had hoped to get a couple of necessary items from a chemists, but everything had shut at 2 pm.

The museums were shut, too. So: we weren't hungry or thirsty or in need of a café or pub, no shops, no museums, no more guided tours, and it was pouring with rain - everyone had gone home to get ready to see the new year in.

We went back to our hotel, thinking that at least we could make use of the swimming pool to pass the time till the main event of the weekend. Nope - that had shut at 2 pm, too. So we went and moped on the bed for a couple of hours. Oh great, "Johnny English" was on the telly - in German, of course. I got some shuteye.

We dressed for dinner and took a taxi to where our boat was moored. (Directly behind the Chocolate Museum - highlight of the Cologne h2g2 meet in 2007) Well, the boat wasn't ours personally - we were having dinner with 460 other passengers, whilst the boat motored up to Düsseldorf and back. The meal was a buffet. We were sat at a table with 2 Russian couples, an Indian couple, a local couple and a couple from Düsseldorf, and we had some good conversation and there was plenty of food and wine. The music was bearable, except for a set of Schlager, and after midnight the whole boat started singing local patriotic songs (à la "Viva Colonia" - don't ask)

At midnight, we all donned our coats and went up on deck with glasses of , to watch open-mouthed the fireworks going off all over the town - again the spire of the Cathedral was hidden from sight - this time by the smoke from the fireworks!

No chance of a taxi home afterwards, which I had feared. Fortunately it wasn't cold or wet now, so we made it home despite evening attire and shoes!!! It involved wading through empty bottles and spent fireworks, hopping over puddles and dodging drunks, but we made it.

Happy New Year 2012 everyone!

amazing, really, how the Germans hate commerce so much and yet will be moaning about how much money they are losing. Did the hotel give a reason for the pool being closed?

Staff wanted time off. Fairy nuff. I didn't object from that point of view - but we HAD paid for the facilities.

Happy New Year Sho!

but they work in a service industry

what would happen if people like wanted, say, not to work on mother's day... oh yes, they do... (sorry, grumpy about it because I've had this argument dozens of times with hotels and the like)

Happy New Year to you too!

"Honey's off, dear!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RTWk9QIKS0 (start around 3.50)