If you are looking to spend a day touring, but don't want to spend most of it traveling, try some of these.
Schloss Lerbach
Distance: 40 minutes
Location: East of Cologne
Description: luxury hotel in a castle with lovely grounds. You can have a luxurious high tea there.
Maria Laach
Laacher SeeDistance: 40 min
Location: south, on route to Burg Eltz
Description: a Romanesque abbey which is still home to about 60 monks.They still chant services several times a day. It has a lovely setting on a volcanic lake. You can tour the abbey and walk around the lake. The path around the lake is around 3 miles.
Kommern Open Air Museum
Kommern Open Air MuseumDistance: 50 minutes
Location: west
Description: An open air museum which shows traditional living of the local regions. You can witness traditional work, such as: preparation of good country meals on an antique stove, baking bread, forging iron nails, farmers with a yoke of oxen, etc. They have a lovely 'Adventsmarkt' lit only by candles and lanterns and with lots of activities. They also host a traditional fall festival with displays of horses and wagons and local fall specialties like Flamkuchen and new sweet wine (the Easter festival isn't so traditional).
“Roman World’/RömerWelt
Distance: 30 minutes
Location: south on other side of Rhine, near Bad Hoenningen
Description A living history museum which teaches about how life was under the Romans. Closed in the winter (mid-November to mid-March).
Bad Munstereifel
Bad MunstereifelDistance: 50 minutes
Location: west, between Montmare swim complex and Kommern Open Air Museum
Description: Walled town with towers, river and half-timbered homes.
Zons
Distance: 50 minutes
Location: north of Cologne on the Rhine
Description: a quaint fortified Rhineland village with a windmill and 14C tollhouse.
Aachen
Distance: 1 hour
Location: near the borders with Belgium and Holland (Dreiländerpunkt)
Description: Quaint town known as Charlemagne’s seat of power. You can tour the city hall and the church (and treasury). The church has Charlemagne’s throne.
Wuppertal Suspension Railway/ Schwebebahn
Distance: 1 hour
Location: North
Description: A train whose rails were upside down and which almost float in the air. The train functions as a form of city transport and can be used to visit the zoo in Wuppertal. Additionally, you can take a touristic ride in the old ‘emperor’s wagon’ for ‘kaffee and kuchen’ at 3 pm most afternoons . The trip takes about 80 minutes.
Limburg
LimburgDistance: 1 hour
Location: south-east – off road on way to Frankfurt.
Description: an attractive timber-framed core medieval town with a cathedral dating from the 13th is also a former toll bridge with a tower. Fun old-style restaurant in Fischmarkt square.
Sayn, Castle and Butterfly Park
Distance: just under an hour
Location: south on east bank of Rhine
Description: A butterfly park, schloss and burg. You can eat in the castle. Just under 1 hour on way to Marksburg.
