Fisher-Ayres on the Rhine

First the comics museum, oddly no mention of TinTin Then the Atomium And then back to the Eurostar station   

  We pushed the boat out on our last night Max was very adventurous, frogs legs followed by langoustine! Artichoke Lucy kept it more traditional

Lots of train travel today, leaving Germany for Luxembourg and then back to Belgium. It’s lucky we are such seasoned travellers  Breakfast in Trier Coffee in Luxembourg  Lunch in Liege Dinner in Brussels

  Having started calling it the Black Gate now they can’t clean it… Karl Marx’s house The entrance to the Amphitheatre, known to romans as a vomitareum Under the floor of the amphitheatre where they kept the wild animals and the gladiators Don’t panic, it’s alcohol free

 

  These Roman bathhouse remains are amazing And the service tunnels underneath are like a labyrinth   

  Trier is full of Roman ruins but still manages to cram a bit or baroque craziness into its cathedral 

  Festung Ehrenbreitstein overlooks Koblenz and the the Rhine/Moselle junction it’s a long way up, lucky there is a cable car   The fortress is massive and full of courtyards with gun emplacements facing them from every direction

It’s quite a climb up to the castle when it’s 36C  There’s a good view from the top though We did a guided tour of the underground defenses and old mine workings where it was lovely and cool It’s nice to see that even when he’s busy being very nearly 15 Max has the time to teach his little sister how to solve logic puzzles 

Yesterday we took a boat trip up the Rhine to St Goar. It was very very hot Stopping at Boppard, a very pretty prosperous looking town  There is a castle about ever 5 miles down the river as the local Counts used them to collect tolls on river traffic  

Koblenz is at the confluence of the Moselle and Rhine. It’s very very hot today!   This statue of Kaiser Wilhelm 1 is so HUGE, the photo doesn’t do it justice  but the plinth is the size of a large building

  Ice cream!   Farewell our Cologne hotel! Paintings from Wallraf-Richartz museum

 A chocolate dispensing robot

  Selfie at Dom cathedral! View from the chocolate museum! Chocolate moulds being filled Cacao pod!