Koln

There is an hourly train service between Euskirchen and Koln.  And fortunately the Hauptbahnhof in Koln is right beside the Cathedral, which was my main reason for visiting. 

Before going into the cathedral, I took a little tourist train, along the Rhine Promenade and to the Chocolate Museum  - Lindt.  Work colleagues would agree that a former Senior Manager, who had a great proclivity for Lindt, would be proud of me, which would be a new thing for both of us.  Did not actually “do” the museum, not all that keen on chocolate sculptures of the Cathedral figures,  but had lunch in the restaurant, overlooking the Rhine.  Quiche, which had frozen peas and carrots in it, so less said the better, but the hot chocolate with grand marnier and cream was to die for.  

The Rhine was very busy – there is a great deal of traffic, long flat-bottomed transport barges,  always at least three in sight.  Numerous pleasure boats, on the river and moored along the bank.  Big ones that do the popular Rhine cruise, and smaller ones offering a dinner and show cruise to Dusseldorf.  Lots of tourists along the Rhine Promenade, being herded by leaders with umbrellas and all wearing their name tags – I heard American and Australian voices in the biggest group.  

The German Olympics Museum is next door to the Chocolate Museum , but alas,  too many kids  – they were making more noise than all the flying foxes in Gayndah .  I  had to leave.

The Cathedral   -  Kolner Dom - so satisfying – it has two spires!  Begun in the C13th, finished in the C19th, this is the highest of all the Cathedrals, and maybe the most ornate.  Every elevation is equally covered with carvings.  A number of sections are also faced with scaffolding shrouded in netting – restoration is probably an ongoing activity, like painting the Harbour Bridge.   On the side one approaches from the Station, however, touristy-type shops have been built right against the Cathedral wall – that was unexpected.  And at the doors of this cathedral, as in Strasbourg, homeless people were set up with their cardboard coffee cups held out in supplication.  (One was not very convincing, having snuggled in either side of him two very sleek and well-fed looking Alsatian dogs).

In the Square at the front entrance, people strolled, took pictures, stopped to watch/listen to buskers – a West Indian playing a whistle, a pavement artist doing 3D works in chalk, a chap with a xylophone and a classical repertoire, (percussionist from the Koln Symphony moonlighting?), an organ grinder, a puppeteer.  The day had started cold and overcast, but the afternoon turned into a beautiful blue day, and people were out to enjoy it. 

Inside the Cathedral, huge numbers, but all tourists – groups of  Japanese, Americans,  but also many Germany families, mum, dad and the kids. (There are a lot of kids around, maybe it is a mid-term break or something).  There is a separate side chapel, where those who actually wish to pray may go.  There were two women there. 

A special group had been allowed into the sanctuary to get close to the conservators – art students perhaps.  There were three platforms set up within the sanctuary area, each with three or four levels, where conservators were working on statues. They had powerful halogen lights as well as head-lights on like miners.  I watched them for a long time: they consulted their “patterns” much more than they actually applied paint.  How slow and painstaking a task!  All the time with tourists wandering around below, photographing them, gazing around.  But what must the task have been for the original workers on these buildings, who did not have OH&S approved platforms with safety nets, nor halogen lights to help them see what they were doing, nor, probably, an admiring crowd to watch them. 

Looked for the organ, of course. There is not an organ loft at the back/front(?) of the Cathedral.  The organ is a recent installation, high up on a platform suspended from the ceiling. Really  breathtaking.

Lots of side chapels, in which are the sarcophagi of various saints and bishops.  Notable was that of Saint Richarda who lived in the C10th – she is depicted with a Bishop’s crook in her hands.  Back then, women abbesses could have ecclesiastical authority on a par with the men.  The later Middle Ages whittled that away very effectively. 

The windows are wonderful, of course.  But words can do nothing with them.  Like music.  Except to acknowledge with reverence the unimaginable effort that must have gone into their creation.  (there are some photos, in the folder on picasa;  but they do no justice to the reality)

Later, in the Hohenstrasse shopping area, I saw in a tourist shop one of those laminated placemats that abound in tourist-land showing pictures of Koln in 1945, and every building around the Cathedral had been bombed to oblivion.  Only the Cathedral stood intact. (One cannot help remembering that the bombing raids over Coventry in England did not show the same restraint towards the Cathedral there.) 

The  Hohenstrasse  goes off from one corner of the Square.  It is one of several pedestrian only streets in a huge shopping precinct.  I bought some cards from a young Thai man in one shop – before I had even opened my mouth he spoke to me in English.  I asked how he knew I was an English speaker, and he had no idea.  He speaks Thai, and German, French and English.  Learning languages, he told me, is a ‘test of character’.  I would say his character is well-tested.  He not only speaks the languages, he can pick which language to use with whom.