We had one night to kill before heading to Brugge, and no clue what to do with it, so we followed a piece of parental advice and headed back into Deutschland to the little city of Aachen. It's the country's western-most city and sits right where Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany meet. Considering it was the favored residence of Charlemagne, we figured it couldn't be half bad. We booked a chain hotel last minute and made it before dark.
We were a little outside the old city, but I don't think anything in Aachen was out of walking reach so it was an easy stroll into town to find food for our empty bellies. We'd had a long day of driving so we stopped in a small liquor store to buy a liter bottle of Franziskaner for each of us, which the clerk happily opened at the register so we could drink them on the walk (sigh... Europe). Upon finding a build your own baked potato shop, I knew that if Michael had anything to do with it, we'd found dinner. We comfort fooded out and wandered the cobble stone streets to find an ice cream sundae like only the Germans can do.
We woke up early thanks to a much appreciated hotel bed, got all packed up, and headed out to explore the city and Charlemagne's cathedral. We had an amazing breakfast right under the gothic building, and headed in to look around. We found the most ornate, intricate, gilded interior we'd see yet (if not an arguable tie with the abbey outside Munich). We stood staring up in awe for a long while, and then continued to wander the city until it was time to go. At first we were confused why the King of the Franks would choose such a small capital with no major body of water in sight, but little Aachen has definitely been added to our must return list.
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