Today is our last day in Cologne. We decided to drive over to a nearby town Bonn, the birthplace of Beethoven and the temporary seat of German government, for a look at something new.

While still in pajamas, Oly, who avoids being in photos at all costs, said “take a picture of me!” We had a little photo shoot in batman pajamas. It was awesome.

Stefan read about a German History Museum in Bonn, and the fact it’s free really tipped the scale for us. Yes, we can be cheap. So off we went. It’s another rainy day, but the rain comes in waves. It dumps buckets for 20-40 minutes and then clears up for a few hours.

We were fortunate that the sun was shining when we arrived in Bonn. We parked on Museum Mile, where all the city’s museums are lined up. It’s very pretty…and efficient. We went straight to the cafe on a beautiful terrace outside the modern art museum, Kunst Museum. We ate gnocchi, a kebab salad and a German flatbread pizza. Oly loves these pizzas, but they are super weird. No tomato sauce; I think the sauce is a white cheese sauce of sorts. The terrace was a beautiful place to sit because the kids could run around. They placed leaves that had fallen from the storm into a large puddle and pretended they were large boats. Very cute.

Although we didn’t go in the museum, I wish we had. It looks very nice. The building itself is inspiring.

The German National Museum of Contemporary History was a few blocks away, and still no rain on our walk! The Museum was fairly small and populated solely by high school students for school projects. Not necessarily the best sign. It tracks the last 60 years of German history. Basically post-WWII. Lillian was very interested. She’s been listening to the talk of bombs destroying cities and she wants to know more. This museum introduced a bit of the concepts but most was over her head, in a good way. Most writing was in German, but the overview explanations were in English. I actually learned quite a bit.

Oly started acting crazy (nap time!), so we returned to the car. We intended to drive into the old town and walk around a bit, but finally the heavens opened up and it was dumping. Also Oly fell asleep within 2 minutes of getting in the car. So we drove home.

We went into the main town center of the little neighborhood where our Airbnb is. We each enjoyed a ridiculous ice cream sundae. The kids’ ones looked like clowns. They loved it.

Back home for some relaxing time and prep for our drive in the morning. The kids enjoyed the bathtub (a shower with a high ledge). We made it work!