We started our day making our way down the Rhine towards Cologne. Cologne used to have alot of industry but looks like most of that is going. Ford has a plant there, but looks like it's shutting down, Bayer has a large facility, but Cologne has the second largest university in Germany, Munich is first. I think it must be school break because Grandpa and I saw half of the student body at the shopping platz.
Our first really great site of the city was the magnificent cathedral, St. Martin's. The cathedral was started in the 1200's that's medieval times, you know knights, crusades that kind of stuff. Well apparently they ran out of money in the 1600's and had to stop working on it. The east side of the cathedral was finished is all. A society was established in the 1800's they procured some funds and finished the cathedral. So it basically took 600 years to finish this building. And what a building it is.
Picture of St. Martin's as we sail up the Rhine, note the size of the cathedral in relation to other objects in the picture, huge!
During WWII the allies bombed most of Cologne, but tried to miss the cathedral knowing it's historical importance. There was some damage but mostly some of the glass windows and a few others parts but it remained mostly intact including the twin spires. Today it's in constant repair and has it's own stone cutter shop below it where artisans replicate pieces of the cathedral's exterior and replace the old damaged piece with the new.
During WWII the Nazis' wouldn't let the church take the relics or windows down because that would make the people feel as if the Nazis' were losing. So little at a time the priests were able to quietly take what they could, which is why only some of the stained glass is original, much was destroyed by bombs.
Interior of the cathedral looking down the aisle.
The oldest piece in the building is a crucifix of Christ. It is from the 12th c., the bishop of the church previous to the cathedral bought it on his travels to find a princess for a prince of the region. When it arrived the wooden sculpture had a crack along the back of the piece. The bishop during the ceremony to celebrate it's arrival and placement took a host (sacrament wafer) and placed it in the crack. The crack, so the story goes, sealed up and the crucifix is considered holy because the "body of Christ"(which is what the sacrament is representational of) is entombed in the wooden sculpture. The other interesting note is that the feet of Christ had not one but two nails in his feet. Apparently that's how they know how old the crucifix is, because up until a certain time period that is how the crucifix was displayed in sculpture and art.
The other important relic in the cathedral is a gold and silver box, inside are supposedly bones from the 3 magi or 3 kings/wisemen. It is believed that the wisemen were 3 kings (young, middle age and older), in an analysis of the bones that are inside they determined that it is of 3 men of young, middle and older age and they date around 1 AD. Apparently the bones at some point were stolen from a church in Italy and bought/brought to St. Martin's where they now reside in a golden coffin. To this day the italian church they came from has a sign stating that the bones were stolen and reside in St. Martin's cathedral. What an amazing feet of human work and art.
Sorry no pictures of the above mentioned. We were hustled out by the priests trying to start midday mass and we didn't get to take a picture. But here are some lovely medieval murals.
A really lovely triptych probably renaissance or slightly before. I need to look it up.
The rest of the day Grandpa and I spent walking around looking for gifts and eating super yummy food! I had the Cologne special (Nuremberg sausages, mashed potatoes and homemade sauerkraut with mustard. Grandpa had sauerbraten, kloesse (potato dumpling), and rotkohl (pickled red cabbage) and of course Spezi! He was so happy to get his Spezi. Wow what a meal, sorry family you missed out on awesomeness.
After a day walking around and our stomachs full to bursting we made it back to the boat and took a wee nap, like 2 hours. When we awoke we went back into town and got the last of the kassespaetze and nougat pretzels for our dinner and topped it off with some gelato. Then we made our way to the Fish Market, just a little cul-de-sac along the river where the women used to sell fish. Now it has a fountain and a beer parlor. I attempted to paint, but we were kicked out of our chairs by a waiter and decided to go back for a live concert on our boat. I painted while Grandpa and I listened to some traditional music, some classical, and some american. The best part was listening to the bar singer who joined after the performers left singing in really bad english some american soft rock with his syncopated piano. Oye! I passed by later and one of the Bolivian ladies joined in, in her equally poor english as she karaoked her way threw a Kenny Rogers piece. It was hilarious!
The sun set on us in Cologne and our boat sailed away into the night to get to Koblenz for the next adventure.
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