Cologne

Cologne is the fourth largest city in Germany and one of the oldest. It was originally a Roman colony in 38 BC and much of the city has been layered on top of the Roman remains. Cologne is interesting as a lot of it has been rebuilt very quickly since 91% of the Old Town was damaged in WWII.

The most iconic site of the city is the Cologne cathedral which is the biggest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe. When I got off the train in the morning that was the first site standing as an icon of the city.

People always praise German trains for being so on time but today that was not my experience. Cologne is 2 hours from Maastricht Central but this morning all the trains were delayed or canceled leaving me to wait an hour at the Heerlen train station. Getting back was also an adventure since all of them were late and out of sync. I gave up on the return and just took a bus from Aachen.

I wanted to have döner kebab since that seemed the German thing to do but really wasn't feeling like a falafel so I ate at a place called Fun Noodle. They boasted hand pulled noodles which actually were very fun so I can affirm the restaurant lived up to its name. They were thick, chewy, and delicious! I told the guy to make it as spicy as possible which in Europe is barely anything.

I started my day with a free walking tour of Cologne. To my surprise, the guide was pretty young and originally from Buffalo, New York which meant I would have no trouble understanding him. He moved out here 7 years ago to just visit his girlfriend and fell in love with the city so he stayed. I asked how he managed to get a visa and he said that he just started working for a food delivery company and they were so desperate, they sponsored his visa as well.

The guide was very funny and kept making jokes about Cologne and the people. He said the biggest thing they pride themselves on is world records and if someone takes a record away from them, they just add more words to the record. For example, when a different gothic cathedral was built taller than the Cologne Cathedral, the Cologne people said that they have the tallest two-bell gothic cathedral in the world. In addition to loving records, they also love beer and not working. Not working is a big trend when it comes to the construction of the city. Construction takes years to complete when it could be done in a matter of days.

We started with the old Roman entrance to the city. Cologne, given it was a former Roman colony, is built on top of lots of Roman ruins. The guide showed up a huge wall that was located in a parking garage because as they dip deeper, they slowly uncover more and more Roman ruins. Since they like to do minimal work though, they typically ignore them nowadays and build around it just like the parking garage was built around the Roman wall. The guide joked that the Jewish museum has now become a Jewish Roman museum due to people constantly discovering Roman ruins and statues in places like their basements.

In keeping with the trend that Cologne people are lazy, the guide pointed out that the cathedral when it was initially started took 250 years to build and it was only half complete. By the time the Prussians arrived, they agreed to help finish half of the cathedral that was incomplete even though they were Protestant. On the right side you can see how the people of Cologne used any size of brick they could find versus how the Prussians used only brick of the same size and it was very orderly. The cathedral is made up of a brick material that sucks up all the pollution of the city hence why it is so black. It also doesn't help that the train station is situated right next to it.

Cologne was bombed so heavily during WWII and the only reason that the cathedral is still standing is because the British would use it as a reference marker of where Cologne was. The British dropped almost all of the bombs on Cologne except for a couple which came from the Americans. The cathedral which stands taller than anywhere else in the city was used as a landmark of where to target.

Inside the cathedral they were playing organ music which was very beautiful. Similar to other gothic cathedrals, it had high vaulted ceilings with lots of stained glass. I have decided that the exterior of these gothic cathedrals is almost more intricate with the amount of detail present than the interior.

We passed by characters Tünnes and Schäl who were invented as puppets and now exist as bronze statues. Tünnes had a very large nose and it is said that if you rub his nose, you will find love. Schäl had very big hands and if you shook them, you would become rich. You can’t do both though since that would be considered greedy.

Following the tour, I was itching to walk around near the Rhine. There was a market set up there so I perused that. Connecting the city across the river is the famous Hohenzollern Bridge. All along the bridge people have put locks on the fence and then thrown the key in the Rhine supposedly locking in their love forever.

On the other side of the Rhine, there is a viewpoint called the Cologne Triangle. The Triangle is essentially a tall office building where you can pay a few euros to catch the skyline of Cologne. I took the elevator up and it was definitely worth it to be able to see the whole cathedral and bridge. The rooftop offered 365 degree views so I could also see the rest of Cologne.

Cologne had lots of cute little alleyways with the cutest colored houses that I spent some time admiring as I ate some frozen yogurt to cool off from the heat.