After checking in at the hotel we walked down to the pedestrian walk along the Rhine river and quickly found the Chocolate museum. The museum was founded and financed in 1993 by the former Chairman of the Board for the traditional Cologne company Stollwerck. Today it is an independent museum and one of a kind that provides an exciting insight into various aspects of the history and modern times of chocolate and cocoa. I am "told" we will be visiting this museum with each visit to Cologne. Somebody here loves chocolate.
The area around the musuem is home to the farmers market on the weekends, hence all the people. Still, the views of the Rhine and surrounding shores were worthy of stopping for a picture or two.
With over 250 churches, Cologne is thought to be the city with the highest density of churches north of the Alps. The 12 Romanesque churches are amongst the cultural highlights of Cologne, alongside the Dom Cathedral and the musuems. With limited time, we opted to skip visiting all 12 churches and 36 musuems and instead focus on the world famous Cathedral and exploring the city via a tour of some sort.
Since the twin towers are the second highest building in Cologne (the first being the telecommunications tower), finding the Dom was a fairly easy task. A fun bit of trivia: the towers are not of the same height. The north tower comes in at 157.38 meters while the south tower is 7 cm shorter. Both towers were completed in the year 1880, making them a much later addition given the date for the original construction of the Cathedral began in the year 1248. Talk about construction delays. Actually, the main reason for delays came down to money. A few wars and hard times fell between the years 1248 and 1880. But I digress. Where were we? Oh yes, the stats. The full length of the Cathedral is 145 meters and about 86 meters wide and has room for more than 20,000 people. The views from the outside were amazing at every angle.
Having arrived too late for the english-version tour for the day, we elected to spend our time outside and enjoyed the many different performers and street artists. I love these types of 3-D chalk drawings:
The exterior of the building is amazing to look at. Nearly every inch (or centimeter) is covered with detailed sculptures:
Standing directly under the twin towers look up:
And now standing back......
The tourist office is located directly accross the street from the Cathedral, making it convenient to plan out the next days events. Since it was getting late in the day, and we were hungry after all the walking around, we found a well-known place to eat (Fruh) and enjoyed a traditional German meal: Bratwurst, Sauerkraut, and Kartoffelpuree (mashed potatoes). I was in heaven.
After a great meal and good nights rest, we set out early the next day to begin our day of tours. Our first stop was the Cathedral for the english-version tour. We learned many great facts about the Cathedral, so it was certainly worth the time and Euro's. The views inside however, were overwhelming.
Just inside the front door looking down the aisles of pews to the head of the church.
Looking up towards the roof to one of the many colorful windows that decorates the entire building. We were lucky in that the sun was shining bright, helping to put on an amazing show of vibrant colors on the walls inside the Cathedral.
This is one of two organs inside the Cathedral. This particular organ was installed in 1985 and rests high above the ground floor.
One of MANY beautiful windows that adorn the inside walls.
Here we are near front of the church looking back towards the main front doors. In this picture you can appreciate the height of the ceiling here (over 43 meters high).
This window is the newest addition to the Cathedral. In 2007 this new lighting concept was created in what is considered the south cross nave of the Cathedral. The light, plain glass window that had replaced a window destroyed during the Second World War was removed and an artirst living in Cologne created this work of art out of endless coloured squares. When the sun shines through the window it casts a wonderful array of colors on the surrounding pillars and walls. Wowza!
This is the Gero Crucifix that hangs in the crucifix chapel. It is considered the oldest remaining large sculpture of the crucified Christ this side of the Alps.
So this may be a good point to answer the question I'm sure you have: why build such an amazing church in Cologne??? Great question, and one that we can answer thanks to paying the 6 Euro for the tour. The construction of the Cathedral began in 1248 after the remains of the Three Wise Men were brought to this place from Milan in the year 1164. The current Archbishop felt that the Old Cathedral was not an adequate resting place for such members of history and thus, began construction of what is now the Dom Cathedral. OK, but why did it take so long to complete the construction, you may ask. Another great question. The final resting place for the Three Wise Men attracted many other priceless relics and thus the Cathedral became one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in Europe.....which resulted in the funds to build the new Cathedral. All was going well until the 16th century when construction stopped. Lack of money and interest were the main reasons for this stoppage. For more than 300 years a huge building crane looked over the city on the incomplete South Tower. At the turn of the 19th century, support began to grow to resume building the Cathedral. In the year 1880 the Cathedral was finally completed. Another amazing fact we learned during the tour: even though over 90% of Cologne was destroyed during the Second World War, the Cathedral survived with minimal damage. This building has staying power. I will end the cool facts with the topic of maintenance. Over 80 stonemasons, glaziers, roofers, and other specialists are constantly at work to keep weather and the environment from causing lasting damage to the structure.
Back to the pictures.
After the tour, we thought it would be fun to take one of those sight-seeing bus tours around Cologne. The weather was perfect to sit up on top of the convertible bus. That is, until we started picking up speed and we were treated to the wind chill factor of what felt like 1 Celcius. The combination of the cold and the Berliner donut in my hand distracted us from taking pictures of the city during the tour. HOWEVER, we did pick up a few fun facts about Cologne to share. For example, the Ford motor company opened their first factory there in 1930 and remains home to their European headquarters. Cologne is a leading trade fair and convention centre for all of Europe and home to several sporting events. From the Cologne Marathon (attracting on average of over 10,000 runners) to it's soccer team (or football, as it is referred to here in Europe) to the ice hockey team, the city has something for every sport enthusiast. I even saw a billboard for the upcoming RAW wrestling Europe Tour event.
The end of the bus tour sadly marked the end of our brief stay in Cologne. But we will return. After all, the drive there is short from our village, there are plenty of museums to visit, and the city in general is a fun place to spend a few days exploring........and of course, pay another visit to the Chocolate Musuem.
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