Eastbound Road Trip: Cologne to Bamberg, Bamberg to Prague

Early last month, Matt, Kellan and I drove to Prague for a long weekend.  The drive from Cologne to Prague is about seven hours.  About halfway between Cologne and Prague is Bamberg, Germany.  We did an overnight in Bamberg to break up the driving time and had a great time enjoying the Christmas markets there.  Unfortunately, it was very rainy the night we spent in Bamberg and I did not bring my camera, but I managed to find a few photos online of this picturesque town:

Altes Rathaus (from Wikipedia)

"Little Venice" (from Wikipedia)

Christmas Market (from the blog "Too Many Mornings")

I highly recommend Bamberg as a weekend trip for those of our friends living in Cologne.  It is hard to rank among other destinations in Germany such as the Romantic Road, Bavaria, Black Forest and Bodensee - there are so many beautiful places in Germany!  The Christmas markets were magical, but I imagine the city is pretty great the rest of the year, too.  I have also read that the city offers many breweries and a number of fun, bike-based brewery tours in the summer.

We arrived in Bamberg in the late afternoon after about a three-hour drive from Cologne.  After getting settled in our room, we bundled up and ventured out for a wet stroll through the Christmas markets.  Christmas lights stretched and danced across the rain-soaked streets, and even though the weather was pretty miserable, we warmed up with some mulled wine and made the best of our evening.  Matt had heard that a local brewery would be tapping a new batch of Bock beer at the brewery and restaurant Ambräusianum, so we made that the last stop on our walking tour when Kellan seemed to be getting hungry.  

Ambäusianum (picture from their website)

Inside Ambäusianum (picture from website)

We enjoyed some delicious, freshly tapped beer and some basic German pub food - flammenkuche and bratwurst - while K watched some Thomas the Train on the IPad.  Afterwards, we made our way back to our hotel in a light drizzle, taking our time as K balanced on curbs and splashed in puddles.  Upon returning to our hotel, we un-bundled and found warm and cozy respite in our room's comfy king-sized bed.

The name of the hotel where we stayed is Barock Hotel am Dom, pictured below.  The accommodations were comfortable and quaint, though not fancy; a perfect choice for a one-night stay.  The hotel offered free breakfast in the morning, with eggs cooked to order.  Nothing extravagant, but we began the next leg of our trip to Prague happy and comfortably full.

Barock Hotel am Dom (picture from hotel's website)

It took about three hours to get from Bamberg to Prague.  We had to stop at the border to buy a permit that is required for driving on highways in the Czech Republic.  About an hour into our drive, the countryside turned into a snow-covered evergreen forest.  My camera was packed away in the back, but I managed to get a couple of shots with my IPhone.

At about lunchtime, we arrived in Prague, where we found more chilly weather, but no snow.  Even though we arrived at about one in the afternoon, the sky had the bluish hue of mid-morning or late-afternoon, letting us know we were quite a bit further east and that it was most certainly winter.  This type of light made everything - the colors of trees and buildings - seem a bit muted, but that still could not hide the beauty of the city.