Recommended day trips from Cologne

Any interests or defnitions of "best"?

I'm going on the Rick Steeves tour "Best of Germany, Austria & Switzerland in 14 days" tour staring May 25, 2024. I will be arriving in Cologne 2 days prior to the tour and would like any recommendations as to day trips from Cologne.

Well, I took a day trip to Aachen from Cologne and loved it. If you like history and charming cities, it is a nice place to visit, and is a quick 30 minute train ride away. Aachen's cathedral is quite beautiful (especially the interior, which is drop-dead gorgeous) and houses the remains of Charlemagne, leader of the Holy Roman Empire.

The town is also very charming and has a lovely vibe to it. It's smaller than Cologne and you could easily spend some time just walking around, having coffee or lunch in a cafe and enjoying the sites. Don't miss the Granus tower, which is next to the Rathaus (town hall) and is one of the few pieces remaining from Charlemagne’s palace. It dates back to the 8th century, making it over 1200 years old.

Cologne is on the Rhine River roughly an hour or so north of what really should qualify for inclusion in any "Best of Germany" itinerary - the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, also known as the Rhine Gorge, between Koblenz and Bingen. However, the GAS tour ignores this UNESCO World Heritage Site as though it were some insignicant creek. Think medieval castles, vineyards, hiking, old-world towns, day cruises, chairlift rides to lookouts...

Map of towns, railways, cruise boat docks and ferry crossings in the UMRV:

http://www.loreley-info.com/eng/rhein-rhine/walking-hiking.php

Map of castles:

http://www.loreley-info.com/eng/rhein-rhine/castles.php

You can click on the place names for more information. Rheinfels and Marksburg are the most significant castles for tourists.

The area around Koenigswinter is pleasant and scenic but not nearly as stunning as the Rhine Gorge area.

Thanks for the information on Aachen. Has anyone done a day cruise from Cologne?

a day cruise from Cologne can be unrewarding. The castles and the narrowing of the river (the gorge) and most of the scenery are too far south of Cologne to make a trip of that length much fun. The riverside views around Cologne tend to either industrial, heavy industrial or flat farmland.

Better to go up the river - south - by train towards Koblenz or Ruedesheim and pick up the boat down there and ride northbound - downriver - through the beautiful scenery and castles and then take the train back to Cologne from where you get off the boat.

South of Bonn is the Drachenfels mountain and ruined castle linked to the train station by the Drachenfelsbahn https://www.drachenfelsbahn.de/en/ Excellent views and a really fun little train up the mountain.. I like it up there a lot, and the hiking trails a good too...

My cousins live in Cologne and one time when I was visiting we took a KD boat from Bonn (we took a train there) to Linz. My cousin wasn’t really interested in doing this, although her only experience was as a much younger person going with her grandmother. She thought ir would be boring. I was tired after 6 weeks of travel and thought it would be a nice down day. I told her I was fine to take the train back, but she enjoyed it so much she wanted to take the boat. Linz is a nice town to spend a little time. Bonn is also nice and just south of Cologne.

Are you out for scenery or sites? I would suggest Bonn and Bad Godesberg.

I agree with Russ that it is a shame that the tour skips the middle Rhine. Take a train there. The fast ICE is prefered. RE isn’t too bad but try not to take an RB train which makes too many stops.

Determine your priorites of what to visit there and look at schedules to figure an itinerary. If you like a big massive castle ruin, then visit Burg Rheinfels in St. Goar. If you want to visit an intact castle, Then Marksburg would be a choice, Chairlift ? Ruedesheim or Boppard. Cable car across the Rhine ? Koblenz. Boat ride on the Rhine ? anywhere between Ruedeshiem/Bingen and St. Goar or Boppard. Rick takes his tours between St. Goar and Bacharach which is nice, but last fall I did just the section between Ruedesheim and Bacharach and really enjoyed that section.

How do you plan to get to Cologne in the first place? Maybe you will already be traveling through the Rhine Gorge on the way and can take the cruise as part of your transportation to Cologne.

There are two separate train routes to Cologne from Frankfurt Flughafen (airport) - where most people fly in for this tour. See map below:

https://media0.faz.net/ppmedia/aktuell/gesellschaft/2912341531/1.75194/default/ice-neu.GIF

The black one from Mainz to Cologne follows the Rhine (and is also connected to the Flughafen by train.) It includes a stop in Bingen, where you can board a northbound cruise boat.

The one in red is the bypass route.

The Bingen > St. Goar cruise takes about 1.5 hours. After the cruise it's a 3-minute walk to St. Goar's train station, where you can catch a train to Cologne, either directly or with a change in Koblenz.

To echo what you have been told, the fact that Cologne is on the Rhine does not mean you should get on or off a boat in Cologne. The only important river view is roughly between Bingen and St. Goar. The rest of such a +- 1.5 hour boat ride would be by train, along the Rhine. I have taken the LOCAL boat ride "Cologne Harbor, more or less", and it's not worth the time.

Other daytrips possible from Cologne are Düsseldorf, Wuppertal, or Monschau. The fact is that Cologne and its excellent museums cannot be seen in one day. Cologne is known as an exceptionally walkable city. However two big museums, and one small museum require a short subway (U-Bahn) ride, the Medieval Art and Ethnographic Museums, and the Kathe Köllwitz museum. My personal favorite is the Applied Arts museum, or "MAKK".

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/germany/can-i-see-enough-of-cologne