Final-year school trip to Cologne: Phantasialand, a Rhine cruise and Bonn (5 days)

Day 1: Departure from your school and arrival in Cologne

• Departure from your school in the morning, at the time agreed with you.
• Daytime drive to Cologne via Aachen (about 120 to 250 km depending on your school, 1.5 to 3 hours excluding stops).
• Our drivers drive for a maximum of 3 hours, then take a 30-minute break, day and night.
• Discovery of Cologne Cathedral, a UNESCO-listed Gothic masterpiece (free admission), and climb up the 533 steps of its south tower (on request).
• Lunch at your own expense, then walk through the old town, along the Rhine and across the Hohenzollern Bridge with its love locks.
• Check-in at the accommodation for four nights, dinner and quiet evening.

Day 2: Full day at Phantasialand

• Drive to Brühl (about 25 km, 30 min).
• Full day at Phantasialand, one of the most renowned theme parks in Europe, with its roller coasters and themed worlds.
• Lunch at your own expense in the park and meeting point set with the teachers at regular times.
• Return to Cologne at the end of the day, dinner and supervised evening.

Day 3: Cruise on the Romantic Rhine

• Drive to Bacharach, in the UNESCO-listed Upper Middle Rhine Valley (about 170 km, 2 hours 15 minutes).
• Rhine cruise from Bacharach to St. Goar, past Pfalzgrafenstein Castle in the middle of the river and the famous Lorelei rock.
• Lunch at your own expense in St. Goar, then visit to the ruins of Rheinfels Castle (on request).
• Stop in Koblenz at the Deutsches Eck, the headland where the Moselle meets the Rhine.
• Return to Cologne, dinner and supervised evening.

Day 4: Bonn, the former capital, and Cologne

• Drive to Bonn (about 30 km, 40 min), capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990.
• Visit to the House of History (Haus der Geschichte), devoted to Germany since 1945 (free admission).
• Visit to Beethoven’s birthplace (on request), then lunch at your own expense.
• Return to Cologne and visit to the Chocolate Museum on the banks of the Rhine (on request).
• Dinner and last supervised evening.

Day 5: Return to Belgium

• Rooms vacated after breakfast.
• Visit to the NS Documentation Centre in the EL-DE-Haus, the former Gestapo headquarters in Cologne (on request), or supervised free time in the centre.
• Lunch at your own expense, then departure in the early afternoon, daytime drive back to Belgium with regular stops.
• Arrival at your school in the late afternoon or evening.