No foolin’ – this evening finds us in the beautiful town on the Rhine that we English speakers call Cologne.  In German, it is Köln.  But first, a quick rundown of our last couple of days in Milano.

Saturday was a day in our home neighborhood of Assago.  We went for a run around the town or village.  It was windy and cloudy, but we managed to avoid showers while we were out.  We ate our meals in the apartment – Greek salad and Sandy’s spinach lasagna.  We spent the majority of the day catching up regular chores – catching up on receipts, paying bills, and also starting to plan our first official destination of our journey – one that is unrelated to the Depeche tour.  We are looking forward to sharing that with those of you who are traveling alongside us via this blog.  Saturday ended with another excellent concert for me.  Sandy video-chatted with our friend Kristina while I was at the show.  Martin performed Somebody, which is always nice to hear – it’s one of our wedding songs.

Sunday was a day of meandering around Milan.  It was Easter so we were not sure what we would find open or how busy anything would be.  We started in the charming neighborhood called Brera.  It was actually pretty busy with several cafes overflowing.  The streets in the neighborhood are narrow and cobblestoned – neat feel to the area.

We walked along some of the “high fashion” streets and enjoyed the window displays.  A pleasant surprise was to see one of our friends who is a part of the Depeche team that pulls off these amazing shows.  We had a really nice chat with him for a bit on the street.  When you travel around and see a bunch of shows, you really gain an appreciation for the professionalism that goes into making a world tour successful.  Obviously it starts with the people and beyond the band, we’ve had a chance to get to know quite a few of those who make this happen and they are just an incredible group of people.  We really appreciate those relationships as much as anything related to following Depeche.

Next up was the L.O.V.E. statue, or better named “the middle finger” statue.  It sits right in front of the Italian stock exchange and is rather obvious in its meaning.  Suffice to say that the artist can’t be much of a fan of capitalism or the financial industry.  Pretty funny statue and location.

After an afternoon of wandering through Milan, we headed back to the apartment.  With nothing planned, I was able to enjoy watching the Arsenal/Manchester City match – it ended in a draw, which was a decent result given that the game was at Manchester.  Arsenal sits second from the top behind Liverpool – let’s see where things end up in May.  Tomorrow is moving day, so we packed up and got some sleep.

This morning, we were up early and our wonderful host offered to give us a ride to the metro stop.  It’s only a 19-minute walk, but with our bags, it was nice to take the ride. 

The metro dropped us at a stop where we could get a bus out to Bergamo airport for our flight up to Dusseldorf in Germany.  We were on Eurowings and check-in was easy enough – I did need to move some weight in my bag to my backpack, but that was fine.  We grabbed breakfast in the airport lounge (loving our Capital One Venture X card) and then it was off to our 1pm flight.  We landed in Dusseldorf a little early – around 2:15pm and started the multi-step process to get to our apartment in Cologne.

Note to self – the transfer times that Google Maps allows give a lot of credit to how fast someone can navigate the transfers.  They are clearly geared toward people who know the systems.  Step one was a train to the center of Dusseldorf (short ride – maybe 15 minutes).  From there, we had about six minutes to transfer to a regional train that went down to Cologne (about a 30-minute ride).  We were on the wrong platform when a friendly local told us the train was coming but it was on a different platform.  Cheers to traveling light – we ran down the stairs under the tracks and back up the stairs to barely make the train.  I held the door so Sandy could squeeze in.  It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if we missed it – just would have needed to wait about a half hour for the next train.  Upon arrival in Cologne, it was another quick transfer to an S-bahn train (local train).  We didn’t have time to buy a ticket but another friendly local explained how we could buy one for that specific train online so we did that while we were riding.  It was only a six-minute ride.  From there, it was about a ten-minute walk to the apartment where we were able to check right in. About three hours and 15 minutes from the time the aircraft door was closed in Milan to use walking into our apartment.  Another large and beautiful home at great value for our days here in Germany.

We found an excellent Greek restaurant a few minutes from our apartment.  Their tzatziki – wow – I think we may try to get back there for another meal while we are here.  The name of the restaurant for the next time we are here is Taverne Alekos.  We could not get our grocery shopping done tonight because stores are closed for Easter Monday.  That will be first up tomorrow morning.