Day 29 Cologne

Yesterday's little hiccup was surprisingly disorienting. The result being we got into Cologne without hats, gloves, comfy walking clothes etc. and it took half the day to actually appreciate what we were seeing but you can’t bump into this…

 

without some jaw-dropping action

 

We almost attended service but the order of service looked pretty long so we just stayed for a little while to listen to the organ (which was pretty impressive) before continuing.

It’s a pretty city

 

um...let's try that again (nothing changes)
 

 

 

 

 

 

Cologne was bombed heavily in WWII so a there’s a lot of 50s architecture, but the site of the city dates back to 38BC so there’s some considerable history lesson to be had here, something the builders of an under-city tunnel discovered became acutely aware of when they started excavations. Poor beggars couldn’t dig up a thimble full of dirt without finding some amazing artefact. We walked through the museum that houses Roman relics and some of the displays were just glass cabinets full of ancient detritus with no attempt at all to categorise it, just looked like a bucket load from a digger. It was moving to stand in the presence of items that were used for ordinary things like cooking, eating, drinking etc.; written, you could even see the way latin evolved; created by human beings well over 2000 years ago... gives me goose bumps.

On a less cultural note Cologne also does excellent cake lunch, of which partook in this very posh establishment...Café Reichard (would have been wrong not to, right cherubs?)