Iron Curtain 2026 Region Trip://Leg 4~Cologne is the (Glitter) Bomb!

                       Date:4/25/2026-5/6/2026

Destination: Poland, Germany

Goal: Energylandia, Phantasialand, Europa Park, Poland Culture, Germany Culture

Distance: 4700 Miles

Means of Travel: Flying, Train, Tour Bus

Potential Credits: 40

Day 4

Not a lot of photos of this morning, because we had important fish to fry! Drew and I were off to KRK to catch our flight from Poland to our next country: Deutschland! 

When I told Drew we had a layover in Germany per the Poland plan, he suggested maybe padding the Germany leg a bit more, and the next thing we knew, it was half the trip! We were off to finish the trip in a different half of Central Europe, with a very different history from Poland's.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A sunset photo of an iron arching bridge crossing the Rhine River towards a tall cathedral with two spires and a barge crossing underneath.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A hand holds a small chocolate in a yellow wrapper reading "100; 1926|2026," with Lufthansa's crane logo.

I could type paragraphs and paragraphs about what happened the morning we left our AirBNB for the airport and the subsequent crazy flight, but I'll just TL;DR it so we can get to the chaos in Germany faster:

• Poland dresses their TSA in scary army green uniforms.
• After checking in yesterday, I saw we had our seats moved due to an airplane swap.
• Drew's boarding pass was on my phone. I stepped through the gate after scanning mine, then handed it back to him to scan. When it set off an alarm, I casually apologized and some guy that looked like Volodymyr Zelensky screamed at me to hand it to him.
• Both of us had our bags searched by KRK security.
• KRK is a crowded mess with no seating.
• When I scan my boarding pass, "SEATING EMERGENCY" pops up. We had been moved into an exit row, and because of my Hidden Disabilities Sunflower lanyard, I'm not allowed to fly there. I know this, I don't book exit rows for that reason, but we were moved into one because of the tail swap. So Lufthansa had to scramble to seat us, putting us both riding bitch one in front of the other.
• I made Drew sit in front of me, considering his epic vomit upon our descent into Poland.

Despite the delay in takeoff due to the plane taking too damn long to board, we didn't land terribly late.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A glass bottle of Paulaner Munchener beer sits on an airplane traytable.

Honestly, you can't really put a global-scaled airline under a microscope until you've flown internationally with them, so this flight was honestly pretty textbook. My big memory with Lufthansa, of all things, was being served Paualner Muchener in a glass bottle, something that would be a huge no-no back in the States post-9/11. 

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A hand holds a large pretzel dotted with sesame seeds against a train platform.

Our Germany leg was to be based out of Panem's Europe's very own District 6 Frankfurt am Main. A travel hub for both air and rail travel that I heard was littered with drugs and poverty, but we wouldn't be there long and it was just stopover stuff. We managed to catch our tight train connection, even with enough time to grab a pretzel at the Frankfurt am Main Flughafen Bahnhof, or airport train station.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A riverside landscape with a small village against the Rhine, vineyards and a castle in the hills above.

Our destination today was Köln, or Cologne, aboard the infamous Deutsch Bahn German train system. And we honestly had a great time! Didn't make great time, but had a great time. While it started off typical Frankfurt dystopian, the ride here is beautiful, hugging the Rhine and showing off all of Germany's little Rhine valley villages and castles.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A screenshot shows ICE 1228 interrupted by track repairs, intervention by authorities, and disposal of unexploded ordinance.

However, we got Deutsch Bahn'd when our ETA was delayed a for a very explosive reason! I saw this in the app, asked a buddy, turns out that old WWII bombs sometimes get dug up around here in construction. The delay caused by the need to detonate this bomb set us back about an hour, putting us in Köln at about 5 pm Germany time. I'll count that as a W, the line was supposed to continue on to Amsterdam, but was canceled at this stop.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A train traytable holds a container of fries, bratwurst, and curry sauce with a beer and wooden silverware. Out the window, the train crosses a river next to a pretty German village.

Ah, I was on a train in Germany, so I cracked open my laptop, wrote, and enjoyed myself a currywurst and a beer!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A platform shows many trains coming and going under an ornate, girdered roof.

Hello, Köln! I loved this station, it was like something from a dystopian steampunk novel. Okay, a lot of Germany looks dystopian, despite being a good, progressive nation with high standards of living. I love me some industrial grit, what can I say?

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A massive Gothic cathedral with twin spires and ornate stonework facade.

Outside the train station, a screaming unhoused man attracted the attention of police, who were there to moderate a peaceful Free Palestine protest. But this commotion was effortlessly dwarfed by the main destination of the day: the enormous Cologne Cathedral.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: An ornate iron door under an arch, flanked by statues.

No bags inside the cathedral, so Drew and I kind of tag teamed it. One played bag lady, one went inside to feel the wrath of god. 

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A dimly lit church sanctuary with tall, pointed windows.

This place is massive! Definitely the biggest cathedral I've been in, a bit more humble in the decor thank St. Mary's, but Kolner Dom's beauty isn't in colors and paint. This place is just huge, impressive architecture, where the Gothic style can really do its thing and stretch those pointed windows tall.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A tall, pointed stained glass window bathes the inside of a massive Gothic sanctuary.

Not gonna lie, it looks absolutely angelic. Even as an atheist, stepping inside this building definitely qualifies as a spiritual experience.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: An array of golden, glowing tealight candles in a church under a colorful stained glass window.

Lit a candle for those who can't be here to welcome me home anymore. My father, grandpa, and a slew of little paws who'd rush to the door to see me.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A small altar on the wall features a Madonna and some flowers.

Mass was actually going on right now, so tourists were kind of limited to a little bullpen thing at the back of the cathedral, but having the music and incense going as I took photos only made my time here that much more special.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Atop an altar sits a golden reliquary shaped like three stacked caskets with pointed lids.

While we couldn't get close with Mass going on, one interesting thing housed in this church is a very important Catholic relic: the Magi. The three wise men who visited the baby Christ bearing gifts are allegedly entombed in these three gold coffins. Is it actually them in the reliquary? Who knows. But apparently it has been opened and does contain human bones and scraps that were once robes.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A vertical photo of Kolner Dom's cross-shaped ceiling.

Cathedrals are designed to have the aerial profile of a Christian crucifix.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A tall stained glass window full of tiny little pictograms.

The most impressive thing about this place, which is almost a design flaw, is the sheer level of detail that went into everything despite its Biblical proportions. As massive as it is, the art goes down to the smallest, minuscule details. God knows how much time it would even take to see and understand every symbol, every icon, every art piece that makes up this incredible location.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: The exterior of the cathedral, with pointed spires and tall windows.

"Not AI slop but looks like AI slop" is an aesthetic we do not talk about enough.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Across a bridge, one can see the iron arching trusses and the twin spires of Kolner Dom against the sunset reflected in the Rhine.

 

From here, we elected to just walk across the bridge, as our hotel was across the Rhine.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A rail of rusty, colorful locks stands in the foreground against a teal bridge at sunset.

Those "love locks" that are mostly associated with Paris and cause serious structural problems for bridges not designed to hold the weight of that much extra metal were a practice in Koln as well. The famous Rhine River bridge was full of them, with street vendors even selling overpriced Master locks for couples to lock to its rails!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett shoots his camera across the Rhine into the sun, with a view of a double arching steel bridge and a cathedral with two spires.

Obligatory dramatic "camera shot into the sunset" photo.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: An elevator door on a landing between two sets of stairs in the middle of a stairwell.

We got to the hotel, where a pissed off German lady in a flashy crop top coldly let us in and checked us into the room, and I took a shower. The elevator for our luggage was nice, until we saw that this was the dumbest attempt at accessibility and the elevator dumps you literally between two flights of stairs on the landing.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett and Drew clink small glasses of beer at a bar.

After we got back downstairs, the woman who checked us in saw us to the bar, got us set up, and apologized for being so crabby earlier. She gestured behind us the rowdiest, most elderly birthday party I'd ever seen, sitting around a high top like the Golden Girls. "They let off a glitter bomb in here earlier and I had to clean it up, they thought it was so funny," she grumbled.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A carousel of small drinking glasses behind a bar are filled with frothy beer, with a bottle of Coke next to it.

"I will keep the drinks coming, when you are done, set your coaster atop your glass," we were instructed. The beers weren't huge, but she was filling them repeatedly with one of those little Oktoberfest carousels you see. The best part was a single Coke in the circle of cups, not sure if it was for the designated driver, the 13 year-old in their group, or if that was the same person.

As we waited on our Schnitzel, one of the women grabbed a microphone and started singing something in German with an ABBA vibe for our "entertainment." By now, the rounds of beers were going to our heads, and this was funny to not only us, but to the bartender! She even told me to can it with my commentary because she was laughing too hard to work!

"Your dinner includes a shot. Do you want me to be nice or do you want me to be mean?" she asked us. I said to be mean, and mean she was! Not sure what was in this shot, but I felt it the next morning!

UP NEXT: The first of two LEGENDARY German parks is on the itinerary as we take on a place that is as beautiful as it is hard to navigate: Phantasialand! A familiar face joins us for a romp around, up, down, inside, outside, over and down this compact and beautifully themed park! A bittersweet moment at F.L.Y. with my licensed pilot late father, the Chiapas line in scorching German heat, and a new #1 for one of us three awaits! Plus, the whole "never stop for the night" trope rears its ugly head as we pick the biggest dump in Europe to crash on our way to the Rhine Valley!