He will be leaving Koln in 12 hrs...on his way to Koblenz. He is taking a bike route that follows along the Rhine.

KatH you will thank yourself for knowing German next time you ride...he was at the train station at Muenster. Most of the train announcements were in German...he found he missed a train which they didn't announce its changed pickup track.. Any English over the PA system at that station, he found it not useful. If he had not understood German, he might have been hanging around at that station abit longer. Not a big deal, since there were alot of frequently run trains.

thank you for the link, alpine. I'm just curious to see their range of choice. He said the children's section was alot bigger than expected.

It appeared there was tight security there..a number of goods had to be requested from behind counter. Also when he got his $25.00 euro pair of sunglasses, one of the staff took the glasses and escorted him to the cashier. This is done for all customers.

I can't explain this, but just a gut reaction..it feels abit paranoid, traditional German and in response a highly organized way of dealing with it. I'm sure there were problems of theft.