Youth Hostels

The regular reader of this blog will have noticed that we are fans of Youth Hostels, even though our youth was some time ago. We noticed recently that some German Hostels are now offering one night membership for €2.50, rather than insisting that one takes out annual membership to stop for one night. This is unfortunately only for people 26 and under,  for some hostels and is only for a limited time, but I think it is a pointer to the future. The Swiss Youth Hostels have a similar system for everybody and Dutch Youth Hostels do not demand membership, but offer you a rebate if you are a member.

Rickshaws in Cologne

If you are thinking of visiting Cologne which as a city has much to recommend it, then check out the activities of perpedalo (http://www.perpedalo.de/). The English on the website is a source of wonder. I suspect it's machine translated. The company offers cycle rickshaw tours of the old town, conference bikes, guided tours on foot and if you are feeling brave you can hire a rickshaw to pedal yourself. The centre of Cologne is best investigated on foot or a bike.
When we were in Cologne we stopped at the Köln-Deutz Youth Hostel, which is to be recommended. It is ten minutes walk from the cathedral and Hauptbahnhof (central railway station). However you will need to be a member of a YHA.

Youth Hostels

We stopped in Youth Hostels as children and young adults and then gave up as we found the rules about being back by 10:00pm too onerous. In recent years we have started visiting them again. Their quality is much improved and their rules much less. We have noticed there are a number of other mature, i.e. grey haired, adults without children and/or grandchildren using them as well. We try to avoid peak periods when people with families would be likely to using them. We feel by visiting them in slack periods we are helping the organisation. I did not realise how normal using a Youth Hostel had become for many pensioners until I glanced at the classified advertisements in the German YHA magazine last night and found a number of the advertisements from people about our age seeking partners for expeditions and presumably a little more.