Cologne, Hamburg

After an unbelievably hot and uncomfortable stay in London we traveled south to Cologne, Germany.  Our delayed Eurostar train finally got going and we were off under the channel and on to Brussels.  In Brussels we had already missed our connecting train to Cologne, but there was another one that we were hoping to catch.  It was a mad dash to try and catch this train through an extremely hot station - Brussels was even hotter than London.  Somehow we were squeezed onto the other train without us having seat reservations and we were off on our way to Cologne.

The whole purpose of this rush to Cologne was to see the Yoyoi Kusama exhibit at the Gallery Ludwig there.  It was difficult to get tickets but we had a timed entry at 4:00 that afternoon.  We arrived in Cologne just after 4 so it was another dash to leave our bags at the hotel, thankfully near to the station, and then rush across to the art museum, also nearby.  Hot and dripping with sweat we got into the exhibit.

An early piece of Kusama's

From the stuffed sock phallic phase

Kusama in New York in the 60’s

Pumpkins

The tentacle room

The polka dot room

There were pieces from Kusama’s early work in Japan, her weird hippy days in New York in the 60’s and then a lot of her more recent pieces.  It was interesting to see her progression.  Everyone likes her spotted pumpkins and there were some amazing extensions of that look - whole rooms of yellow spotted tentacles, reflecting rooms of tentacles, polka dot rooms, etc.

Later works

What was surprising to both of us was the similarity between her paintings and the Australian aboriginal art we had seen the year before.  Both employed dots, both had similar use of color.  For some of the pieces my first guess would have been this is aboriginal art.

 

Cologne Cathedral

After the art gallery, we wandered around the outside of the cathedral which was just outside the gallery which was a stone’s throw from our hotel, which was just next to the train station, which was just next to the Rhine River.  We were in the right part of town.

It was still hot (95+ degrees) so we went back to the hotel where we ate and got a great night’s sleep finally in air conditioned splendor.

Love Locks on the Hohenzollern Bridge

The next morning we had an early morning walk around old Cologne and along the Rhine.  We crossed over the Hohenzollern bridge the other side of the river.  The bridge is loaded with locks, thousands, perhaps millions, love locks, and one had to wonder if the bridge could bear all that weight,

We encountered a lot of walkers along the way.  There was an official 170km walk on the Cologne Trail around the city.  Difficult at the best of times, but with the intense heat it would be dangerous, maybe foolhardy.

Cologne Cathedral interior

Gerhart Richter’s Stained Glass

Earlier More Conventional Stained Glass

Back at the hotel, Diana was already suffering from the heat so she went back to the room.  I walked around a little and went inside the cathedral.  What a building, such high vaulted ceilings, what beautiful stained glass.  Gerhard Richter, the artist, who happens to come from Cologne, created one of the stained glass windows - a collage of different colored square pieces of glass.  Not the best stained glass window in my humble opinion.

I took Diana some food and coffee back to the hotel and then we left to walk around a bit.  It was going to be a hot one.  We walked over to the cathedral and took a closer look around.  It was amazingly cool inside when it was 100 degrees plus outside.

David Hockney’s LA pool painting

Sacramento’s own Wayne Thibaud in Cologne

We next went to the Gallery Ludwig again.  This time to see the permanent collection.  They have a wonderful collection of all art from the turn of the 20th century to the present day.  We spent the whole afternoon there while the temperature hit 102 outside.  

After the art gallery, we went to an ice cream shop and had a ridiculously large ice cream sundae - very nice.

Great St Martin Church, Cologne

Next stop was the Gross Saint Martin church.  We crept inside and it was the start of a service.  There were 2 senior male officiates, 10 nuns, 1 organist and a congregation of 2.  The nuns sang beautifully, the organist was wonderful, and we stayed listening for over 30 minutes.  

Real German Food

It was then back to the hotel to cool down for a bit before going out to dinner.  We went to the Peter’s Brauhaus, one of many such places in old town Koln.  In Koln many of the beer places serve a light beer in small glasses.  Each glass is small and cheap and they keep the glassses coming so you always have a cold one in front of you.  Alas the restaurant was too hot on this record breaking day and Diana had to go back to the hotel.  I stuck it out and had a very nice local Koln sausage with potato salad.

The next morning, our last in Koln, we were up for an early breakfast at Cafe Reinhard just in front of the Cathedral.  It was then off to the railway station for our train to Hamburg.

Cologne Railway Station

The station was very busy, very hot and most trains were delayed.  It didn’t help when our train notice dropped from the display just before it arrived causing a mild panic among the passengers.  Then it arrived from the wrong direction and we raced to the other end of the platform.  We then realized it was reversing in and so we ran back the other way.  Just the thing we needed to overheat ourselves before our journey.  I was drenched in sweat again.

Fortunately the carriage was air conditioned so eventually things settled down to a comfortable ride through the German countryside - nice agricultural land and many forests.

In Hamburg we had a hotel, the Reichshof, quite near to the station so we got settled and cooled once more in our room before heading out to explore.  

Speicherstadt, Hamburg

We didn’t really have a plan but there was a UNESCO site, Speicherstadt, that seemed worthy of a visit.  It is a series of warehouse buildings in a series of narrow islands in the Elbe estuary that were built in the late 19th century to the early 20th century.  Beautiful brick towers of warehouses with external crane housings. 

 

The Rathaus, Hamburg

By the time we got to Speicherstadt we were again hot and sweating. In our search for somewhere cool to sit and take a beverage we stumbled onto the Rathaus, the city hall.  This magnificent building with its clock tower and green copper roof dominates the square.  It has been well preserved. 

The Elbe River, Hamburg

Our next destination was the harbor area.  We had heard of a ferry line that travels out and back up the Elbe estuary, ferry line 62.  We walked for longer than we would have liked to get to the Landungsbrucken ferry landing to board the boat.  It was a pleasant, cool and breezy ride down the river with the old city on one side and the large contained port on the other.

The Opera House and Port of Hamburg 

We stayed on the boat for the round trip and returned again to Lanungsbrucken where we alighted and caught an Uber back to our hotel.  An evening meal at a nearby German restaurant was enough for the evening.  Wiener schnitzel at Das Dorf accompanied by a very pleasant beer shandy.

Aussenalster Lake, Hamburg

The next morning I took a quick walk around the hotel area - over to the beautiful Kunsthalle, a small artificial lake, Binnenalster, the Rathaus, St Petri’s church and back to the hotel.

After a leisurely breakfast at the hotel, we were off to the station for our 12:24 train to Copenhagen.  As usual there were delays, and a last minute platform change, and then after positioning ourselves at the correct end of the platform the train came in the other way around.  Nothing is simple or straightforward.

Even on the train it wasn’t so straightforward.  We stopped for a long time outside Hamburg, then changed direction of travel, then someone pulled the emergency break and that caused real delays.  One or more of the doors was not functioning and that caused a delay for an hour or more while German Railways allowed us to move ahead.  When we crossed into Denmark, the Danish Railways got involved and there was another delay of an hour.  Finally we were on our way. 

England - May 2026

After our trip to Africa we returned to England and spent a few weeks recuperating and enjoying our time in Derbyshire.  We did all the usual things that we do in England - curries, fish and chips, meat pies, Park Runs, Marks and Spencers shopping, trips to Sheffield and Manchester, walking in the Peak District.  There were a few new things and they are described in this post.

First of all before, we even got to Derbyshire we had a hiccup in picking up our car. I had mistakenly reserved the car for 8:00 pm not the required 8:00 am and being a Bank Holiday weekend there were no available cars for a 30 day rental when we arrived (at 8:00 am).  There was a one day rental available so we took that and explored nearby Windsor and Eaton (and visited friends Steve and Yvonne in Thaxted). 

 

Queen Victoria outside Windsor Castle

As mentioned, it was Bank Holiday weekend and the weather was hot, so Windsor was very busy.  Crowds of ice cream eating tourists wandering the streets - not a very nice experience to be honest.  We viewed the exterior of Windsor Castle and walked down to the Thames and over into Eton.  

Eton High Street

In Eton High Street the crowds were less and it was a more pleasant experience.  We admired the old shops selling the dated Eton College uniforms.  We couldn’t get into Eton College but we did admire it from the exterior.

Well Dressing - Ashford

Up in Derbyshire, it was Well Dressing season again and there was a rather fine example in Ashford in the Water (the next village to Cressbrook where my flat is).  Ashford’s theme was Beatrix Potter.

Well Dressing - Cressbrook

We also had a Well Dressing in Cressbrook but it wasn’t quite up to the high standard of Ashford’s.  Cressbrook’s theme was Winnie the Pooh.

We made a trip to the Lake District as Diana had never been there before and, as usual, the Lake District weather was just awful.  It rained pretty much all the time, and not just light drizzle but some serious rain.  Nevertheless we did get to see a few things.

St Martins Church, Windermere

Our first stop was in Windermere, where we had a quick peek inside the St Martins church.  There has been a church on that site since 1203 but little remains of the original building.  The interior is quite beautiful.  The white washed walls are engraved with decorations and murals.  There are impressive stained glass windows at either end.  

The Blackwell House

The Blackwell House interior

Whilst in Windermere we saw a sign for an Arts and Crafts house, the Blackwell House.  Being big fans of that genre we followed the signs out of town for a few miles to the Blackwell House.  I hadn’t heard of this house or of its architect, Baillie Scott, before but what a gem it was.  The house was designed and built between1898 and 1900 as a home for the Manchester brewer, Sir Edward Holt.  As with many Arts and Craft homes of that period, Baillie Scott designed everything down to the furnishings and even the door handles.  It is a thing of great beauty.

It was still pretty inclement weather so all we could really do was to drive around.  We drove up to Ambleside and then to Keswick.  The rain was pretty continuous.

The Forest Side Lodge, Grasmere

We were staying at a very nice old hotel, the Forest Side Lodge.  A beautiful old house that was built in 1853 for a Manchester solicitor and his family.

In the evening, we dined at the hotel which has a Michelin starred restaurant.  The food was exceptional, as you would expect for a Michelin starred restaurant.  It was a fixed menu and we had the 4 course option (there was an 8 course option).  All the courses very tasty and were beautifully presented.

St Oswald’s Church, Grasmere 

After our stay in the Forest Side Lodge we went into nearby Grasmere.  There was a nice church, St Oswalds, which we explored.  Inside there is a memorial to William Wordsworth who attended the church when he lived in Grasmere.  He is buried in the graveyard.

Next to the church is the very old and small shop, Sarah Nelson’s Original Celebrated Gingerbread.  They sell this rather hard and very strong flavored gingerbread.  The lady in the shop is all dressed up in her old world Sarah Nelson garb.  In a move with the times, only credit cards are accepted - no cash.

Afternoon Tea at Betty’s, Harrogate

We were driving over to visit my step sister-in-law, Katy, in Filey and we stopped over in Harrogate.  Harrogate is a nice old town, with some wonderful old buildings.  Unfortunately every one seems to be either a bar, or a tea room, or a restaurant, or a pub.  That’s what the tourists want and that is how Harrogate earns its keep these days.  We contributed to that by having afternoon tea in Betty’s Tea Room.  Betty’s is the most well known tea room and it has been around for a long time.  It didn’t disappoint.

Betty’s Fat Rascal Scones

I bought a box of their signature Fat Rascal scones to take to Katy.

Bempton Cliffs

In Filey, the next day, we decided to pay a visit to the Bempton Cliffs, just south of Filey.  This is a well known area for watching sea birds on the cliffs.  It has become very popular and on this Friday morning there was quite the crowd of people there. 

Razorbills at Bempton

The cliffs are populated with large numbers of gannets, razorbills,  guillemots and kittiwakes.  In addition there are a couple of other species that are less common - the fulmar and the puffin.  Everyone wants to see the puffins because they are the most colorful and unusual birds with the giant bills.  However, they are quite elusive and there were not many of them.  I only managed to briefly spot one at the end of my visit.

Gannets at Bempton

The big gannets are quite beautiful with their yellow heads and their graceful necks.  

The next day, a Saturday, there was a Park Run in nearby Bridlington, so off I went for a little exercise while everyone else slept.  It was quite windy and cold but it was a beautiful run from Sowerby Hall along the cliff tops to Bridlington and back.

Back in Filey it was the Filey Food Festival.  Such festivals are increasingly common in the UK now, a gathering of stalls selling just about anything that you can eat.  We indulged in the purchase of pork pies, samosas, pastel de nata and cinnamon buns.  

We then went to Emma and Neil’s house to take a look at the progress of their renovations.  Yes they have made progress and they now have a kitchen but there is a long, long way to go.

The craftsman at work

Emma is hoping to open a pottery studio so we both had a go at throwing a pot.  It was really difficult but really fun.  We both created a tumbler style vase that actually looked pretty good.  We would like to do more of this.

Chatsworth House

Back in Derbyshire we paid a visit to Chatsworth House Gardens.  As with everything at Chatsworth it is quite expensive but it is good quality and well presented.  £6 for parking, £20 each for entry just to the garden, never mind the house.

On a wet Friday morning, we drove over to Manchester.  We parked near the center just off Deansgate and visited the John Rylands Library.  This is a magnificent building built to house the collection of books of John Rylands and his wife Enriqueta.  Rylands was the head of the largest textile manufacturer in Manchester and Manchester’s first multi-millionaire.  He married the Cuban born Enriqueta when he was in his 70’s and she was in her 30’s. 

 

John Ryland’s Library 

The library, built by Enriqueta after John’s death, is a true work of art.  There are wood and stone carvings everywhere, high vaulted ceilings with beautiful stained glass windows and, of course, it is filled with beautiful old leather bound books.

The Manchester Baby - the first real computer

We moved on to the Museum of Science and Industry.  This houses examples of contributions that have been made to science and to industry in the city of Manchester.  There is the Manchester Baby, built in the late 1940’s was the first computer to have all the elements of a modern day computer.  It had a 1024 bit memory.

Cotton Spinning Machine

There were some impressive examples of machinery from the cotton trade.  Raw cotton carding machines, massive spinning machines, mechanically complex looms.  

Then there were examples of the large scale mechanical power generation equipment that powered the factories of the Industrial Revolution and, of course, steam locomotives.  Steam engines were exported around the world and there was both an Indian steam engine and a South African engine in the exhibition hall.

Our final Manchester stop was the Whitworth Art Gallery.  This is a little ways out from the center in a nice park setting.  It houses a small permanent collection - Hockney, Hirst, Freud and a special exhibit of Japanese prints.  

The Japanese prints were all examples of the Ukiyo-e style of woodblock prints.  These were popular in Japan in the 17th-19th centuries.  They were colorful, mass produced and relatively cheap in their day.  Not so much anymore.  

Under the Great Wave - Hokusai

The most well known example of this form is the print Under the Great Wave by Hokusai.  

One of the Fuji Paintings - Hishoge

Hishoge was another artist of that time and there were many examples of his series of prints of different views of Mount Fuji.

The Major Oak, Sherwood Forest

On Saturday, we had lunch with my step sister and her husband in Askham, at the old Duke William, a pub that I went to so many times with my mum.   We were nearby Sherwood Forest and all news in the UK was that the famous oak tree, the Major Oak, was now dead.  This over 1,000 year old tree. famous for its association with Robin Hood, had not produced any shoots or leaves this year.  It is a huge tree and it has been propped up and had its cracked plastered over for many years but it had finally given up on life.  All the attention its death had been getting lately meant that the forest was quite busy.  A nice walk was had through the old woods.

Well Dressing - Over Haddon

It was Well Dressing Season and there were a few more to see while we were there.  We visited Over Haddon, a most beautiful of villages overlooking Lathkill Dale.  They had an exceptional well dressing, a candidate for the best of season.

We moved over to the other side of Lathkill Dale and Youlgreave which is another nice town with a lot of history.  There were 5 well dressing displays there.  We had exceptional coffee in the old and impressive Coop building - once a store, now a YHA and a coffee shop/restaurant.  Sadly there was no food because “the chef was ill’.

The church and churchyard were also interesting.  A service was going on that Sunday morning so we didn’t go in but we heard the hymns being sung inside and we heard the church bells pealing.

The final well dressing for the day was in nearby Litton, the next village to Cressbrook.  There they were “blessing” the well so there were a lot of people around.  A brass band was playing, a vicar was trying to bless the wells but his microphone wasn’t working, a children’s choir was singing and they later on did a bit of dancing.

Steam Engine in Litton

Most impressive of all was the steam engine that belonged to someone in nearby Foolow.  It was parked outside the pub.  As we admired it a dirty, grimy and greasy couple came out of the pub and drove it off up the road.  What a beautiful piece of machinery.  It trundled off down the road with a grand toot of its whistle.  

At the end of our time in Derbyshire in June, we wanted to spend a few days in London.  We had hoped to stay with our friends, Peter and Lisa, but, in the end, that wasn’t possible due to Lisa not being well.  We struggled to find a hotel, perhaps because of all the fans in town for the Harry Stiles concert, but we eventually got one for one night, the Montagu near Russell Square, and then another for a couple of nights at the unfortunately named but nearby Goodenough Hotel. 

It was a heatwave in England and London was oppressively hot.  The air conditioning at the Montagu was quite adequate but the Goodenough had no air conditioning and that made the nights there unpleasantly hot, even with two fans running all night.

The British Museum Library

On our first day there, we paid a visit to the British Museum.  We first went into the Library and Reading Room, the place where Karl Marx wrote Das Kapital, and where Lenin, Gandhi, Sun Yat Sen, George Orwell, Oscar Wilde and many other notables did some of their work.  

In the main museum, we walked through the very crowded Egyptian rooms.  These were just as oppressively hot as the tombs in the Valley of the Kings had been in our visit to Egypt some weeks earlier.  Not a place for quiet contemplation of the exhibits.  In an attempt to find somewhere cool and less crowded we ended up in the Dutch etchings and Japanese art section.  

Ice Cream in Russell Square

After the museum, we walked back to the hotel and on the way stopped in Russell Square and shaded ourselves under a tree while we had an ice cream - a 99.  It had been years since I had indulged in a 99.  

We then switched hotels and checked into the Goodenough.  It was certainly good enough, if there had been air conditioning it would have been great, but sadly, without ac, it was only good enough.

Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross

In the evening we walked over to Kings Cross/St Pancras to check things out for our Eurostar departure in a couple of days time.  Of course, Kings Cross is the home of Platform 9 ¾ of Harry Potter fame.  There was a queue of people waiting to get their photo taken with the sign and the luggage trolley disappearing into the wall.  Diana sneaked in at the side and we grabbed a quick photo for her granddaughter.

John Lennon’s Strawberry Fields lyrics

Then we went to the British Library and looked around their exhibition area.  They have many wonderful things - Shakespeare’s Folio edition, early bibles, illuminated Qurans, Beethoven’s music notes, a Monty Python script and John Lennon’s scribblings of the lyrics to the Beatles’ song Strawberry Fields.

The next morning, we were headed to Knightsbridge and the Serpentine Gallery for a David Hockney exhibit,  Traveling on top of a number 14 bus over to Knightsbridge was unbearably hot. 

Hockney - a Year in Normandy

The Hockney exhibit was titled  “a Year in Normandy” and it was a series of iPad paintings he made during Covid times from his studio in France.  The gallery had a continuous circle of paintings stitched together depicting the change of seasons as viewed from his studio. What a talent to be able to create such beautiful images on something as novel as the iPad.

The Albert Memorial

We then walked across the park to the Albert Memorial.  It is looking very smart these days and obviously it had been renovated since I last saw it.

The Royal Albert Hall

From there we went to the Royal Albert Hall and did a tour of the hall.  They were rehearsing for a ballet performance so they would not allow us to take photos.  The set designs were top secret.

Keeping Cool at the V and A

From the Albert Hall we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum.  Again it was another record breaking heat day and we were suffering.  We tried to find a cool part of the vast museum and sit for a while.

The elaborate cafe at the V and A

They have so much “stuff” in the V and A and it is hard to take it all in.  We walked through the Tapestry room (the coolest room because they have to be protected with a modest AC), the silver gallery, the Chinese gallery, the photographic gallery, the modern design gallery and a few paintings (J.M.W. Turner’s were the only ones I really took notice of).

In the early evening we went out to the private park opposite our hotel, Mecklenburgh Garden, and sat in the shade and tried to cool down a little.  It’s not often you get a room key and a garden key with your hotel reservation.

The next morning it was an early start on the Eurostar to Brussels and on to Cologne.  The heat wave was in Europe too, and the Eurostar trains were delayed.  Ours was an hour late and that caused us to miss our connection in Brussels.  C’est la vie in the summertime these days.