We have been trying to rent a car online. We are able to select to pick it up in Bruges and to drop it off in Germany. The initial price is quoted as $151 Euros. As we get to the end of the process it says “wait a minute, we are going to charge you another 300 or so euros and I’m not really going to tell you why”??

We discover that if we rent in Germany and return in Germany we can get the smallest car for 116 Euros. Soooo change of plan!! We are now on the train from Bruges to Cologne or Koln in Germany. We don’t have accomodation yet, but are not worried about it. We will arrange to pick up a car tomorrow and drive somewhere, we know not where yet.

Score!!  After we arrive in Cologne we head to the Tourist Info center.  We speak to a young man who says he has just found a great deal for us.  He can’t book it for us, but if we can walk to the hotel we might be able to book the room in a 3 star hotel for 44 Euros ($65 CAD)!  The hotel is owned by the church.  OK, sounds great!  Off we go.  We have a bit of trouble with the directions and the handwriting so we ask a stranger on the street.  He leads us to the hotel.  I am expecting hostel type accomodation.  The name of the place is Maternshaus, I picture a convent, very austere.

It turns out that this rate is an internet only rate, so we have to book it on line.  They give us their wifi password and we sit in the lobby and connect with a site called hrs.com.  I have never heard of it before.  Apparently hotels use this site to fill empty rooms.  So we confirm at 44 Euros and the desk clerk tells us it is usually 135 euros!  Make a note of this site.  It may even work in North America!

This is what it looks like!!

Not as monastic as I had magined 🙂  The blinds even have a remote control!

We have booked a car for tomorrow for about a week.  We will start with driving down the Rhine River from Cologne towards Koblenz.  The trick will be to get through Cologne and Bonn and onto the smaller roads.