Dusseldorf

Today we got up and headed to Dusseldorf to explore their markets. We had come here two years ago and we stayed in Dusseldorf then and I really enjoyed it. I loved wandering the town, the riverfront was really nice to walk along, there is a lake with lots of birds to watch right by the one market, it was great. I was curious to see if I would enjoy it as much after the amazing markets in Köln…and I did! Really I just enjoy the city so much more it is hard not to enjoy the markets too. It is so nice and I really like the vibe there. Much nicer than Köln. So much fun art all over the place and yeah we should come back again not at Christmas time and explore more (or stay there again next time!).

It was only a degrees colder in Dusseldorf than when we left Köln, but it felt much colder! I had left my fuzzy jacket in the car as I thought it would be too warm, and I did have another layer that was just warm enough, but I could have used the fuzzy jacket again!

We had packed sandwiches for lunch, but then we found all the things to eat so we saved them for dinner. We found some bun bao with tofu, cabbages, cucumber, carrots, onions, and a sriracha sauce - super good! Then we got some vegan curry wurst and a hot beverage and sat by the lake with the birds for a bit. I had found holunderpunsch and was like yes!! But they fooled me. It was just kinderpunsch, way too sweet and tasted nothing of holunder! I had seen a cranberry one earlier and thought I probably should have gotten that one…At least the cranberry one should be tart instead of overly sweet! Oh well.

We also got some potato pancakes with lingonberry and that was super good. The sweet helped cut the greasy feel too!

Then it was shopping Sunday today (stores are normal closed on Sundays, but I think 4 times a year there are Sundays where everything is open, or can be open) so we went to spy on the patisserie where we got treats from last time to see if they were open (normally they are not) and they were! We got a pistachio mousse tart and a mixed berry tart! Should be good!

I had told Raymond when we got there that we had at least 3 hours till we could leave for our overnight stop (so we would get there at check-in time) and I thought that was going to be way too long, but we didn’t take much of a break and ended up back at the car over 3 hours later!

Oh there was a fun adventure trying to park today. I had the cheap garage on my map and we were headed there behind a van and we go to turn into the garage and this big van decided they wanted to go in too after they went mostly by it. Raymond had looked up how high the ceilings were to make sure we would fit and they were pretty low, but we were small enough so no worries. But van? No way. Maybe on the top floor as they just made it inside, but that was full so you had to go down a level and that had another sign with a lower height limit…and van just decided to try and go down even though there was no way they were short enough and scraped up the top of their van and got stuck and then traffic was backing up behind me and I was trying to back up so they could back up and get out and it was a mess. But we were both like why did they think they would fit?!?! They were definitely too tall! Though the ceiling right there was pretty scraped up so they were definitely not the first too tall car to try and go down there!

And I just realized that was the second parking garage thing that happened today! The first was when we were leaving Köln (we had parked in a garage) the car in front of us tried to leave before they paid which I was like have they never parked in a parking garage before? Cause pay before you go to your car is standard (at least over here)…and Raymond was like well they are not from Germany, but I was like I’m pretty sure it works the same way in France! So two people today not knowing what they were doing in the parking garage that I had to back up for to let them get out. Weird!

But Dusseldorf was a great stop and I loved it. I was wishing we were staying overnight there as it’s just a city I love!Læs mere