If we hadn't just been in Bonn, we would have thought Sunday's were just like every other day, because Köln is the big city that was going full tilt. We looked around for some location to put our luggage (Rick Steve's always talks about taking advantage of train station lockers to store you luggage for safe keeping). Well, what we found were close to the exits, large grey metal boxes asking for our money. Looked rather shifty at first glance, and as I had learned from the laundry, we just sat back and watched for a bit. After a bit and staring at a little digital screen with pictures of luggage on the move, we figured out that you 1. put your money in 2. then a little door will open revealing a metal box behind 3. you put as much as you can stuff into the little metal box (which we could put both of our backpacks in) 4. you stand back and get the ticket. Then the little diagram showed our luggage being stored somewhere below our feet- rather an odd feeling- but we headed out the door and stopped.
Now you might wonder why we stopped, well we walked right out the doors and were floored to see the amazingly large Köln Dom right in front of us. Shocked. Amazed. Biggest church Mark or I have ever seen. Wow. Well I had to get a picture, and headed to the far edge of the train station for it- like I said, this was a large Dom (doesn't feel right to call it a church). Well we slowly walked up toward it, and around to the front. I saw the replica of the upper spire and got a picture of Mark next to it- it even made Mark look small. Then we turned toward the Dom. The closer we got, the more there was to see. Gargoyles were coming out of every surface. Carvings of Saints and angles covered the archways. Once inside we put in some money for a booklet about the church- amazing that it was the only thing left standing after the war- you could see the pitting on the outside which could have been blasts from the war and there was major reconstruction taking place (the new pope is visiting here in 2 days). Then we heard singing- the echo was amazing- so we moved closer, through the large grouping of people, and walked into mass. We got a copy of the songs and tried to follow along (although we could never find out where they were in the songs- in Latin and German). Mark took a movie getting in some of the architecture and to try and capture the amazing height of the building. The songs still give me goose bumps with the beauty of the harmonics in the building. Going to Mass here would be a truly moving experience.
Getting away from the crowd, we headed over to the edge and sat down on some cold outcropping of stone and listened. It was similar to the catholic masses I attended when I was a child- incense, the rising and falling of the priest. After we put in some money for an offering (the kind priest walked right up to all the tourists on the side), we headed up closer to the front of the service. The building was magnificent, the organ was broken up on several sides of the church, the lectern was immaculately carved, the sun was starting to come out and show off the amazing stain glass windows. This is when I had to take another movie, we were up near the intersection of the wings of the church and the choir and organist were playing in the background. Next, the procession left and the people wandered around. Ahead of us was an underground vault, perhaps with relics, and the raised stage was to our right, in the center of the intersecting wings.
After a bit we filled out still looking back over our shoulders. Once we were outside, we headed around the far side of the church and bumped into the Roman and German Museum. Here we were happy to get our student discounts again and headed first to the top floor (1 up) to start our tour. Mark got some great shots of the Dionysus mosaic, on the ground floor while I hung away from the edge (stupid fear of heights). The upper floor held Roman stone markers grouped on stages that you could circle. There were small statue carvings and even a roman arch- with the keystone. There were class works, jewelry, and another mosaic with three walls painted around it- although I couldn't believe that anyone could ever walk on top of a floor mosaic as large as our living room. There was even a replica wagon.
On the middle floor (the one that we entered on) everything was in German- which made our tour go a bit quicker :) There were some dinosaur bones- a fossilized fish then some replica housing of early settlers. Going through a tunnel, which sounded like you were in a cave with rushing water, there was some old armor, swords, and what looked like a pile of old buttons or punched coins.
There were some beautiful opaic wall hangings of what looked like vellum with German text on them (really wishing we could read German at this point) and then we were back where we started. Heading downstairs, we passed a large head of Medusa, stacks of large stone carvings that looked like they had been murals running on the side of Roman buildings and immensely heavy- thick. The Dionyses mosaic was just feet from us, it was actually in the original location that it was found, after the war and they built the museum around it. Then we saw another floor mosaic (with a version of the cross similar to the one that the Nazis used) in black and white. On top of this one, it was decorated with tables and chairs to look like a real dwelling. Then we saw a “typical” Roman work room with baskets and goods, some roman toys (I liked the chickens and horses) along with some more glass and tombs- a wee bit spooky- but there were large people sized tombs.
We headed to the gift shop and I got some Roman Coins (replicas of course) and a couple of postcards. They had the neatest panoramic postcards of the city and funny animals, folding them in threes and you had a sendable postcard for the post. After a quick trip to the bathroom, where I politely paid my .50 cents on the dish, grabbed our things out of the coat check and headed to a bakery (Mark was searching for the closest game store, but they would have been closed on Sunday anyways). Mark and I split cheese and salami sandwiches with odd sweet pickles inside and drooled over the beautiful cheese cakes lining the shelves. They also had a large amount of what looked like almond covered sweet pretzels which were very popular.
Taking a final look at the largest cathedral ever, we miraculously got our luggage from the mysterious luggage keeper (there were some tense moments at first), then found our train to Koblenz.
In no time we arrived at our destination, walked outside and just to the left was the tourist information office. They gave us a map and told us which bus goes to the fortress- the only day it will go all the way to the top. After a short wait, Mark took the lead and we paid 3.50 each to head to our new hostel. We were both rather exhausted with walking around the museum all morning and afternoon, but we enjoyed the sites and the smooth bus ride to the top of a very steep hill.
We were rather shocked with all the cars in the parking lot and the long line of people waiting to get into the fortress. So after waiting for a bit, with sore backs, in the rain, I was grumpy enough to step out of line and walk to the front, there were two people selling tickets and we went into a short line at a white van. “Spreckenze English” and we learned that the hostel was the farthest from where we were. So we started walking where all of the people were going- when in doubt, follow the group- through a tunnel and we came to a raised metal map on a rock podium. The hostel was still a long way in front of us, so we kept going and saw what everyone else was in line for- the Gummy Bear exhibit- sounds a bit odd, but it is true, Haribo was having a Gummy Bear exhibit with big inflated Crayon colored bears guarding the entrance and all.
Still aiming to the right and forward, we finally found our hostel at the bottom of a ramp and on the last stretch there we saw an amazing view of Koblenz over the Rhine and Mozel. Once inside, we waited for three Italians without reservations to be given rooms, and then we got our rooms at the very end of the hostel (having printouts of our reservations was very helpful). Giving into our exhaustion, we took brief naps and then headed out to find some dinner. On the way we passed the monolith gummy bears and headed past a wooden airplane for kids into the sale shop for Haribo. Here we found some interesting raspberry/blackberry gummys and a package of regular gummy bears for desert- Mark said that some of his conference friends had purchased the strong licorice gummy wheels, but he didn’t really like them.
Next we found the fortress museum and picked up a handy map of the fortress- it is really very large. Unfortunately the museum was in German, so after a quick tour, we headed back the way we came. On our way back, we learned that the only café in the fortress was closed for a party (on Sunday night- isn’t that odd), so we feasted on granola and gummys for dinner and watched a beautiful sunset over the hills. In the dark of our room, we played deFugger (similar to settlers I thought) and slept soundly.
