Cologne heart

I posted that photo on instragram without a swim, just because I liked it. It was an spontaneous shot with my iphone.

There is a small story behind it of course.... otherwise how realistic is it to stand SPONTANEOUSLY at the rhine river at sunset with a heart balloon?!

My friend Laura visited for a friday night in Cologne. Instead of going to the Center we stayed in Porz. The annual Porzer Inselfest was on with a fleamarket, foodmarket and live music. We strolled around the market and had a few Kölsch (beer). For some reason Laura wanted to play "pull the cactus" at one of the booth, which brought us two purple plastic aliens to carry around as a price...
Speaking of which, perhaps you would have liked that picture even more ;-)
Or that picture after we coaxed the guy at the piglet-train to let us have a ride...

We finished another few beers and noticed that we still hadn't bought a present for Lauras boyfriend who was coming back from his USA trip. The booth with the balloons was still open and we bought a heart with Cologne city flag on it.

We strolled further down to the river bank and Laura stood on the ferry jetty. I took the first photo as a snapshot and then we tried some more poses with the sunset background.

I didn't have my DSLR-camera with me and the iphone has it's limits with little light, but I like the way the photo was taken.

Sometimes an evening with your best friend is as much as you need.

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Rhein river splash

Normally I don't like going by bike, but yesterday a friend of mine suggested a small bike tour along Rhine river.
I live on the southern edge of Cologne in the district of Porz-Zündorf and the Rhine river is just a 2 minute walk.

Yesterday it was a 1 minute ride by bike ;-)

We headed along the river to the south, but didn't get far.

I saw a small "beach"  (if you want to call it beach... it is really just a bit of sand on the river bank between two groynes, so it looks like a small bay...) where children were playing in the water.

So we stopped for the first picknick at the beach and watched the action in the water. The kids were splashing about and two boys even dived. So I thought "challenge accepted" and walked into the river to find out that it was freezing cold.
It was 22 degrees outside, but the water had only 15 degrees  (I looked up the water temperatur online). Nevertheless I was already in the mood to make a quick splash. I went further in and the two boys came up to ask, if I believed that they even had their heads under water and dared me to sit down. It tooked some time, but I went in splashing and swimming for a few seconds.

You never regret a swim!

I changed into my jeans and we continued the bike tour, me being already very happy with the adventure of the day.

In the evening we found a small open air cafe with deck chairs. You can either sit on the "beach" Patio or at the river bank with your feet in the water.

Spots:

51143 Köln Porz Langel

the next street is "In der Aue"

just walk along the foodpath next

to the river to find the "beach"

Mondi Beach http://www.rheingold-hotel.com/7.html

Please notice, that swimming in the Rhine river can be dangerous! Swimming is at your own risk! Wildswimstories expresses personal experience and gives no advise on the safety of the swim spots.                                

                                                                       

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