Cologne, home of Eau de Cologne, and the first city to have successfully deflected invaders (and ornery tourists) with chemical warfare, namely the Perfume Cannon Ball or
Parfümskanonenkugel in German. Modern perfume warfare scholars agree that the closest modern equivalent is the Department Store perfume counter labyrinth (Kaufhausparfümthekelabyrinth) on free sample day.
Cologne City motto: Why bathe when you can splash on some Eau de Cologne?
Sometimes reality is boring and needs to be spiced up a bit with a more exciting narrative. Okay, down to some actualy facts about Cologne. Cologne is one of those German cities that ended up with a different name inside and outside the country. Outside it's Cologne and inside it's Köln. I'll be going by Cologne in this blog entry only because it's easier to write that than Köln with that funky ö.
Cologne is a not particularly interesting city with some lovely sites in it. The most impressive site being the famous Dom Cathedral.
This picture doesn't even begin to do it justice. I simply don't have the right camera to capture the sheer size and majesty of this old gothic cathedral. What I found particularly interesting was that although the cathedral construction began in the 13th century, it wasn't actually completed until the 19th century. They had a little funding problem in the Middle Ages as well as the tumultous years following the Reformation.
Inside the cathedral is a fascinating array of stained glass windows from the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and even a few panels of 19th century Bavarian. The mishmash of styles makes for an intriguing walk through history. I could recognize that there were differences in the way the stained glass was constructed, but could not identify which was from which era.
The interior of the cathedral is on the left. It's quite simply massive with those huge vaulted ceilings stretching up 140 ft.
Some examples of the stained glass windows below. Unfortunately, it was quite cloudy that day and it was difficult to get a nice picture of the stained glass under those conditions. Or at least, I don't know enough about photography to coax a stunning picture from those conditions.
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Painted around 1440 by Stefan Lochner. It was noted in
one of the books that the painting was so realistic that
one could identify dozens of plants in the foreground.
Not having keen enough eyes or vast enough knowledge of
botany, I will have to take their word for it. |
After touring the cathedral I went to the Roman-Germanic museum in Cologne. That might seem like an unlikely combination of countries, since the German hordes are generally blamed for the sacking and general destruction of Rome, but Cologne was a Roman city. While building bomb shelters during WWII, the following mosaic was discovered.
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| Detail on one of the panels in the mosaic. |
Also in the museum were some lovely pots, glasses, and assorted markers and statuary. Being a huge fan of Greco-Roman art it was a most enjoyable museum, even if I couldn't read any of the signs.
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| Ancient Flip-flops? |
After touring the museums, I stopped for lunch and had the requisite Kölsch, a local beer. It's a beer with a very low level of carbonation, so you only get 200ml at a time and they come in these little glasses called stange - shtahng-e. At least, I think that's how you spell it. It means pole.
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| Old Town along the Rhine River |
I then wandered down to the old town, which like every respectable European old town has meandering streets, houses scrunched together and a high overall cuteness factor. This old town also had an endless string of bars. I can imagine that bar hopping is quite a fun activity in Cologne. The little beers are pretty cheap and you can easily get a few in one bar before hopping onto the next, getting a few more...rinse and repeat until you stagger home.
In addition to the Dom, I also checked out another old church, but one that was more severely battered during WWII. It had a quite different feel. I must admit a preference for these old churches free of almost all adornment. This was called St. Martin Grosse. It was built on top of an old Roman granary. The stained glass is all modern, but I think makes for an intriguing juxtaposition with the raw stone in Middle Ages style.
Approximately six hours later I had finished wandering the streets of Cologne and headed back down the A5 to Darmstadt. I took one last photo when I returned because I thought it would be nice to have a pretty photo from Darmstadt and I am a sucker for sunsets.
This picture doesn't even begin to do it justice. I simply don't have the right camera to capture the sheer size and majesty of this old gothic cathedral. What I found particularly interesting was that although the cathedral construction began in the 13th century, it wasn't actually completed until the 19th century. They had a little funding problem in the Middle Ages as well as the tumultous years following the Reformation. 
