Beautiful Deutschland!

Our morning are all about the same with the early wake up calls, breakfast buffets and piling onto the coach for a long drive.

This morning we got up and made our first "comfort stop" as we just crossed the boarder into Germany. I didn't see much, as I spent the morning catching up on my sleep.
Our first stop of the day was in our surprisingly well liked city of Cologne. We checked out the huge cathedral, took a little walk and stumbled across this gem: a huge pedestrian street lined with stores. We were in heaven.
One staple of every stop we made was the toilets. We were directed to these bathrooms and I fell in love! Yes, in love with a bathroom. The doors to the stalls were clear, but shut and lock them, and they fog and say "in use." It was like magic. The whole decor and theme was so cute, even the sinks were amazing (I'm a huge nerd, I know that)!
We had a slight hang up with the meeting time while in this city, Mom's watch stopped and we were 10 minutes late getting to the coach. To say our group was irritated is a bit of an understatement. We were in a rush to get to our river cruise and on a tight schedule, but luckily everything worked out.

We headed to Boppard for our Rhineland River Cruise. It was beautiful as we cruised down the river, viewing the quaint riverside towns, down to St. Goar. I think this is when I officially fell in love with Germany.
Heidelberg was our next stop to view the Heidelberg Castle. Again, every place we stopped seemed to be oozing with beautiful, old building and charm.
We sauntered down to the river and enjoyed the evening time viewing our beautiful surroundings. Do you ever have your moments where your life feels like a movie? I had many of those moments the whole trip, but this was one of them.
We made it to our hotel in Mannheim (which apparently is NOT the cool place to stay in Germany, per the locals). We were ready to get to the hotel for the night (which thankfully had free Internet, loved it!).
The next morning we were up and at them at the crack of dawn for another morning drive, which of course had to be documented.
Our last stop in Germany was Munich. The weather was beautiful, the sights were breath taking, and the city divine.
Our day progressed as we headed to Austria, more to come...