Köln Day 2

Today we got up to a beautiful day! A bit of clouds, but for the most part sunny and gorgeous! I think it was 11 degrees today which is pretty warm for cold weather! Didn’t need all the layers again even down by the water where it was windy so that was nice. Tomorrow is supposed to be warm again and then start to get colder.

Today we pretty much just wandered from Christmas market to Christmas market and saw what we saw along the way. First was the star entrance market from last night which was probably the least good market here in a Köln, but even that one wasn’t bad! I get why these markets are so popular as they have all been really great!

I was glad we went to the Angel market last night at it was not as magical in the day! Still nice, I like the both designs, but without the lights it was missing something.

We went to the main market at the cathedral for lunch of pasta with smoked tofu, veggies, and flammekuchen sauce and some vegan momos (dumplings) with a spicy Nepalese sauce - both of these were super good! Then we wandered through the other nice market from last night and spied on the ice rink there (it was really big! One of the biggest we have seen at a market!) then on to the market at the harbor. When we were walking up it looked like a ton of people and like you wouldn’t be able to move, but when we got up there it was fine. It wasn’t that big, but there were a lot of nice things (and we got some kinderpunsch as I really like the mugs! All the mugs at the markets you pay a deposit on and then can either keep them or return them for the deposit back. I kept this one as I really liked it, though I couldn’t get a good photo of it. I do have a small collection of Christmas market mugs, but only ones that bring me joy and we use them for hot chocolate at home :)

We also found an empanada place that had two Vegan ones - a spicy seitan one and a spinach one so we tried one of each (luckily they were tiny) and they were really good! We also found some printen cookies which I love! We are stopping in Dusseldorf tomorrow basically just so we can get some of them as I knew they had them (they are from Aachen and are only available at a few markets! And they are naturally vegan!). They are spiced cookies with anis and they are the best! We got one covered in chocolate, yum!

Then on the way back to our place we stopped by some treat places to see if they had anything we needed and the one place had so many things!! We ended up getting a matcha cheesecake and a poppyseed streusel - both were just okay. The poppy seed thing I had made before and didn’t like it at all and this one was better than what I made but still not amazing. And the cheesecake was not really for me. Oh well. We also got a gingerbread tart which was pretty good (we just tasted everything when we got home).

After a short rest we headed out to another small market close to where we are staying and that one was also really nice. Lots of crafts which I love and lots of vegan foods! For how small it was I was surprised by how much food I could get there! We only ended up getting a cinnamon roll as it looked too good to pass up (it was still hot so we had a taste and it was delicious!).

Then for dinner at got some bang bang noodles - spicy hand made noodles with gyoza and a free cucumber salad! These were good, but German spicy aka not spicy. I was expecting super hot, but oh well. We keep some hot sauce with us and we added that and then it was perfect!

Overall this was a really great day. The weather was perfect and we were at the markets early enough that they weren’t crazy busy, though by the time we were leaving the cathedral one and the other one they were getting packed. All of the markets were really nice, had lots of nice things and fun foods and treats for us! Köln itself isn’t my favorite, it’s not that pretty and just meh to wander around, but I would definitely come back again for the Christmas markets! Especially at night - they were all magical!Читать далее