17/5/11 – 20/5/ 11 Cologne (Koln)

As Jane noted in the last post – this is a bit out of sequence. I was doing the Cologne update, Jane was doing the Rheine one, and she finished her bit first because I’m a bit lazy.

Anyway, Cologne (or Koln with two dots above the ‘o’) which according to Mike, is the gay capital of Germany. Certainly the gentlemen there were very well groomed.

Our first experience of the autobahn, which has no speed limit in some parts, was interesting. I was expecting a super wide motorway with banked corners, but no – it is perfectly normal. However, it is quite an experience to be going 100kmh and be passed by someone who is going about that speed again. 

We loved Cologne.  The campsite was great, town was close and the cycle in was easy and picturesque. It was a very easy city town for us to ‘get’ and everything just seemed to fall into place.

The key attraction of Cologne is the Cathedral – which is one of the biggest in Europe. We have seen big churches before, but this is something else, possibly because the rest of Cologne is quite new and relatively low. The Cathedral looks like it has descended from space.

The Cathedral - someone put that concrete post there (right of photo) just to make it hard for me to take a photo.

Cologne was almost completely destroyed in WWII, but the Cathedral was untouched.

We walked to the top of the tower - 533 steps. Ouchy.

Jane's mum plays the organ at her local Church and is not fond of heights. What do you think Barb -  like to tickle the ivories on this one?

I've seen a lot of religious iconography and I've noticed something - Jesus never looks very happy.

This box contains the remains of the three Magi, or three wise men. It's solid gold and was paid for by one of the local citizens - so the goldsmith added him in to the frescoes as a fourth wise man. 

It looks like this with no scaffolding around it.

The inside of the spire - it's hollow!

They have created a museum and display of the roman archaeological remains under the Cathedral, and have created an access by boring through the walls. Look how thick they are! Hopefully these bits are not holding up anything important.

This stained glass window IS just random squares. It's like one of those magic eye pictures.

Even the floor is cool.

Another highlight for us was the Church of St Kolumbra. This was a medieval church that was built on top of the remains of some Roman houses. It was bombed in the WWII and has recently been rebuilt. However, rather than just reconstruct the old church, they have built a new, smaller chapel which incorporates the remains of the old walls into the new building, they have also excavated the Roman sub basement and constructed a new art gallery around the whole lot. Very impressive.

The outside wall of the Church, showing old bits (in the middle) and new bits (above)

This is the entry way to the new chapel looking over the excavated Roman basements.  You can see the holes letting  in the light are the holes in the walls int he upper half of the picture above.

Jane reads all her guide books like this. Her arms must get tired.

Jane is looking over the excavated Roman basements towards the windows of the new chapel.

Inside the art gallery. It was much cooler than us.

15th C carved head of John the Baptist - very, very tasteful

The beer in Germany is obviously fantastic but we were happy to discover the wine was so good too.  We were lucky enough to have a wine fair in the center of town; it only goes for a week every year so we were lucky to catch it. Glasses of wine about 2 euros a glass.  Interesting fact, Jane cycles faster in the dark when she is boozed than during the day.

You would smile too if you were drinking delicious wine for 2 Euro a glass.  And that isn't a full serving, Jane has already drunk some, because she is a bit of a lush.

 On our last day we cycled back along the newly redeveloped west bank, which has incorporated the old dock buildings into a new office park.

I loved those 'L' shaped buildings. 

Finally, a note on German cuisine; it is fantastic. They do like their sausages though, we have had bratwurst, wiesswurst, currywurst, and prestwurst, all with sauerkraut (pickled cabbage) and it is all grand.  We also had our best meal of the trip yet- in an italian restaurant in germany!

Currywurst with bread. Everything tastes better when eaten with a toothpick.

'Sour beef' roast (which was delicious) - that ball on the left is a potato dumpling about the size of a cricket ball.

The restaurant/beer garden next to the campsite.

Our view from our site - note the cycle path on the other side of the fence.  The guy who ran the campsite was a bit sarcastic when Jane asked for directions to the city "you cycle along the path - you get to the city!)

So – two thumbs up to Cologne.  Or Koln.