Kaleidescopic Koln

Cologne (Koln) certainly lived up to expectations and we were so glad we had decided to return.  We had time this visit to wander the streets and the parks and to soak up the atmosphere of this ancient, yet modern city.

We found churches and chocolate, bridges and barges and Bill even found another mustard factory!  He fortunately refrained from buying any more- really, how many more flavours can one enjoy or take in?  That’s rhetorical, because with Bill & mustard, we ( & he) could go on forever. And he would be delighted to do so!

Cologne Cathedral

Chapel of the Three Magi

More Stained Glass History

Chapel of St Michael

The Dom (cathedral) has been a cathedral since around 300AD and is just steeped in history and once again, we learnt much of the history of the times from the beautiful stained glass windows.  As you know, many people in the Middle Ages couldn’t read, so church windows were the illustrated stories from which they learnt about the bible and the stories of their own towns and times.

  The remains of the Three Magi are buried there- bet you didn’t know that! And we could work out how long the present bishop has been in residence by counting the number of gold rods hanging over the Treasury door- one for each year of his tenure. They hang from a long, gold bar which is only about half full so no prizes for guessing he’d be hoping to fill it up before he goes off to the great cathedral in outer space!

We are into history of all types and like to think we are open minded, not just wanting to learn about people and churches, but other areas as well, hence Bill’s falling on the mustard factory, so of course we took ourselves off to the Lindt Chocolate Museum, which is in the centre of Cologne.  Just so we didn't appear biased & so we could chat to the grandchildren about what a great time they missed out on!  Sorry guys!

Not only is this place a museum, it’s also a factory and a fairy tale shop.  We found out that Cologne is the home of Lindt chocolate and that the factory has been there since the late 1700’s.  The cocoa was then & still is brought in through the ports in Hamburg and one of the shipping companies then is still importing the cocoa beans today. It was this company that also started a quality control system for the beans.  Another point of interest, but a rather sad one, is that many of the workers on the cocoa plantations have never tasted the finished product because they can’t afford it.

No shortage of helpers with these tools!

Old age never seemed so good!

Cologne is, as you know, one of the important ports on the Rhine and we saw a diversity of interesting river craft.  One of the floating hotels that sails the European rivers was in port for the day & it was just breathtaking.  All of the top deck was restaurants and bars, both inside and out, the second story was bedrooms with wonderful appointments and big windows as well as lounge areas and other restaurants and the lower deck was also suites.  It would have catered for hundreds of guests.

On the other side of things, we were really interested in the barges that carried many different types of cargo up the river- cars and grain amongst them.

Barge on the Rhine

Other Observations

Eating out is great in any European city, especially when the weather is warm which it isn’t but then, we can’t complain, hearing what it’s like at home.  Every mall is filled with tables and chairs and so many different types of food.  It was raining when we arrived in Cologne and so we ate at the restaurant next door to the hotel & it just happened to be a really good, Italian restaurant with really good Italian food. Many locals eat there and it was so good to hear a language that I could understand! And I was very pleased when I heard two of the waiters chatting in Italian and one said to the other that the signora speaks Italian and will translate for the signor!  What a pity I didn't think to tell the signor something other than what he wanted to know!  Could have fed him anything!

Today we spent 8.5 hours driving less than 500 kms!  All the Germans & most of the rest of Europe were on the autobahn (get the German bit there) that we were on & they were all travelling north.  So glad we decided not to drive all the way to Copenhagen in one stretch.  We would still have been on the road.

Off to Denmark tomorrow so we had a really good dinner tonight because we have heard that everything in Denmark is 5 times as expensive as anywhere else in Europe, so will let you know.  Hopefully, the roads will be a little less packed than they were today.

Speaking of cars, it fascinates us to see the taxis here.  They’re all Mercedes and Audis and Peugeots!  Like the driving schools in Italy.  They’re all the same as well.  Mikaela was amazed.  As she said, why would anyone use those cars for kids to learn on? But here, they’re just like our Fords and Holdens, I suppose.  Mind you, if you asked me which I preferred- the ones here or our Fords or Holdens.... mmm...   bit of a hard choice?  I don't think so!