After talking about visiting Cologne for years, we finally took the
plunge, thinking we would go there for a long weekend during the Krokus
vakantie (at the end of Feb, just before Mardi Gras and Ash
Wednesday). Well, we had heard about Carnanval in Cologne, and
thought that it could be kind of fun to see a parade or so - well,
little did we realize quite how much that Cologne shuts down during
Carnaval! Basically the entire town was closed, including ALL
museums, include the Dom (the major cathedral there), including
basically any other tourist attraction - instead, there were daily
parades, lots of people in costumes, etc - not quite what you'd expect
from the typical straight-laced German!
The weather on our arrival -
looks like it should be quite nice
Just a day or two later -
doesn't this look like a nice time to camp???
Sunday there was a big family parade - lots of schools, civic groups,
you name it, were there. What John and Lydia LOVED was that
everyone in the parade had candy with them, and they would throw it out
for the spectators to catch! Of course, we had no idea, so first
order of business for Mark was to find bags for the kids - off to
Subway to get two sandwich bags - which took the kids about an hour to
completely fill up, then off to get more bags. We thought we
would watch the parade for an hour or so, and I think we stayed there
three hours (and the parade was still going strong) before we decided
the kids needed something real to eat (we found Lydia a good German
sausage, and you should have seen the smile on her face!)
John and Lydia in their little costumes - you can see Lydia wearing a
little Princess skirt and she is actually wearing John's knight
cape. We looked a little out of place compared to everyone else,
who had really dressed up to the hilt.
More of the parade
Some of the other spectators, showing the typical garb in Cologne that
weekend.
