25/5 Chocolate dreams, hunting lodge and an ark

Friday 25 Bruhl Cologne and Dusseldorf

We slid the bags downstairs quite easily and checked out. Elisabeth took us to the hunting lodge of Clements Augustus, Falkonlust, which was similar to the schloss but smaller in scale. We had to wear rough felt  bootees over our shoes to protect the flooring, which made for a very slippery exploration. It was interesting to learn something about hunting herons with falcons, which was regarded as a very suitable kingly sport. The hunters bred the falcons and the herons and released about 3 or 4 falcons to bring down a heron, which would then be tagged and released.

The decoration in each of these rooms was beautiful.  Unfortunately, no cameras allowed inside.  If you want to see what you are missing, you will have to google it or make the journey to Bruhl.

Front view

Side view

Back view, with the Falconry buildings on the right and the horse stables on the left.

The chapel, which was grotto style

We drove back up to Cologne and parked in a huge underground parking area beneath the new crane-shaped buildings on the waterfront. We then came up near the chocolate museum, which was a wealth of information about all aspects of the cocoa plants and the history of chocolate, including slavery and piracy as well as the attempts to establish “fair trade” in cocoa which does not exploit children and poor families. There was a 2 storey indoor rainforest, a complete chocolate production works making Lindt chocolates . . . . . and FINALLY a shop where you could buy some.

Noah's Ark.  Didn't go inside, it floats from location to location spreading the word.  Heaps of animal noises coming from the loud speakers.

We wandered about a bit and then relocated the car still within the same carpark and came up further along the river where Elisabeth found us another restaurant with river views.  Once again . . not over expensive and very pleasant to sit with a beer, a mousaka  and a cappuccino and watch the boats go past on the Rhine.

After three days of being far too kind to us, Elisabeth then drove us up to Düsseldorf, where we had booked into a very nice and inexpensive hotel barely 200m from the main station. We were sad to see her go and hope one day they will find their way Down Under where we can reciprocate her extremely kind hospitality. We heard this morning that friends from our first cruise, who had invited us to visit them in Hawaii, had been removed from a cruise ship near Brisbane after Jane had a serious stroke, and is still in intensive care after a month. 

This afternoon I rang Air Asia in Paris and was told that we have been booked on Malaysian Airlines on 21 June. So there rests another problem.