Tiger turns six in Cologne

To soothe the January blues and focus on a bit of German language immersion with a birthday slant, we headed over to Cologne with Ryanair for £112. On the Friday evening (17th January) we stayed in the Premier Inn at Stansted airport (£41). We parked for the duration in the hotel car park with the first 24 hours being £15 (you park and get a code from Reception), and then the remainder of the weekend - about 30 hours - booked via Your Parking Space (£26.49).

Our alarm went off at 5am, and took the shuttle bus to the airport at 05:30 (£4, free for kids). At the airport we had the Stansted Fast Track, £7.50 each and as the sun was slowly coming up we got on our lovely Ryanair plane which left at 08:00!

As we had done this trip once before, I felt that we knew our way around quite well. We went straight to the trains (S Bahn, green line) and took the S19 to Loevenich station then a short walk to our Airbnb at Bahnstraße 167.

Our Airbnb host Marc had been really quite awesome and decorated our teeny tiny room for Tiger's 6th birthday with ribbons and balloons! It was super small but oh what a bargain at just £45. Marc also had an awesome garden with a geodome, bee hives, chickens, dogs, cats and even an escape room! We actually had a sofa bed and it was perfect - a real adventure.

Marc allowed us to check in a little early at 12:30 and after a brief supermarket trip (Netto is around the corner) then we headed out to Silly Billy Spielpark via Uber (10 euro) for the rest of the day (12 euros for child, 5.90 euro adult). It would have been possible to walk there but it was about half an hour so we took the easy option.

I really think we are missing a trick in the UK in not serving beer! I had a lovely time attempting to work on my laptop, and enjoyed pizza and beer. The only slight niggle is that Silly Billy has no wifi but otherwise it is brilliant and hopefully Tiger managed to navigate a bit of German throughout the day.

On Sunday 19th January we headed out by train (Loevenich to Hansaring) to a very typical German restaurant for lunch called Päffgen, where they served beers in huge carriers, I had mussels and Tiger had a schnitzel and chips. Such a popular place and I would definitely go back there!

Our next stop was the cinema at Metropolis Kino to see Moanna 2 (called Vianna 2 in German, and just 5 euros each). This walking distance but we did also go past a Premier Inn at Hansaring which I will definitely bear in mind for my next visit. It is actually one of three Premier Inns in Cologne and is called Cologne City Mediapark Hotel.

We had already seen the film in English and Tiger got along with it really well without too much complaining! To round of the day, we headed to the playground (Spielplatz im Rheinpark) by Uber (11 euros) which is a pretty big and lovely playground beside the Rhein river. It was pretty chilly, but Tiger managed to make a few little friends before we walked back to the train station (Koelnmesse) from where we took the S19 train to Koeln/Bonn Flughafen. Worth a mention for anyone not too familiar, is that there are two airports you can take a train to from there - Bonn and Koeln/Bonn so be sure to get the right one!

We were on time heading home, but seem to spend so long in the airport. Thankfully there was a kids plane to play on! Back on UK soil, it was bus back to the Premier Inn and a 2.5h drive home to bed. Phew! Auf Wiedersehen Germany, we will be back as soon as we can!