We started our trip in Cologne, Germany. After a lot of delays and snow problems, we were lucky enough to not have any problems with our flight to Dusseldorf. From there, we caught a train to Cologne, only 30 minutes, and started our journey. We were hoping to get a lot of skymiles from our trip and since we were in Germany, quite a modern country, we figured using our cards wouldn't be a problem. Yet, when trying to buy our tickets to Cologne from the Dusseldorf Airport, the guy tried to make us pay in cash. We didn't have any and by some sort of magic, he was able to use his card machine. Why he didn't want to just take the card in the first place is beyond us but this caused us a little bit of concern with our intention of using our cards.
The Cologne Cathedral(Kölner Dom) is probably one of the most imposing cathedrals we've seen. Compared to the others in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Germany, it's massive. It was started in 1248 and not finished for another 600+ years. From 1880-1884, it was actually the tallest building in the world until the Washington Monument was completed. The front façade is quite impressive and is the largest of any cathedral. It's quite easy to see how it became a famous landmark for German architecture, like the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The construction was begun in 1248 because that's when the previous church burned down. It managed to survive WW2, probably because of its height and how easily recognizable it was from the air. It sustained damages but has since been repaired. We walked around the inside for a bit because the architecture alone is quite spectacular.
On Monday, we spent a lot of time wandering around the streets of Cologne but the cold and wet weather made it trying at times. We visited the Chocolate Museum, located down on the Rhine River. Most of the Christmas markets were being dismantled since they had closed up shop on Christmas Eve. The gnome you see is right outside of a Beer Hall where we ate lunch. The sausages and mustard with sauerkraut were very tasty.
Scattered all around the city are old pieces of the ancient city. There are several ancient gates from the old city that date back to the medieval ages and still have most of their structural integrity. Even though the city saw lots of action during WW2, the city still seems to have remained intact. There are also tons of old Romanesque style churches and buildings. The walk along the river was full of colorful houses that were nearly destroyed some years back when Cologne had a great flood. Since it was quite cold out, we ventured into the Museum Ludwig, which has an impressive collection of Picasso and Lichtenstein.
Our overall impression of Cologne is that its a nice city but the Cathedral is really the main selling point and the cold and snow everywhere made our time not as nice as if it were the summer. We called it a day around dark and went to the train station to collect our rental car and head south to meet up with our friends Patrick and Nicole in Wörrstadt.
Wow! Definitely on my list to see now!
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