Day 7: Cologne, Germany

June 10, 2013

Today we spent the day exploring more of Cologne. Our B&B is in an apartment and it is set up so you have a kitchen and can cook your own breakfast whenever you like. We had coffee, ham and cheese, and toast; it is still stocked with Germanic breakfast items. We looked up "things to do in Cologne" and found that the Köln (Cologne in German) has a good orchestra in a beautiful philharmonic hall, so our first goal this morning was to buy tickets for a show tonight. We didn't initially find the box office so we went to the Cologne Cathedral (the biggest attraction in the city). It is HUGE gothic style cathedral in the middle of the city. It is also the second highest point in the city. We paid a few Euros and climbed the 533 steps to the top of the tower for a great view of the city. 

A very long pedestrian-only street lined with stores between our B&B and  main part of town

A 5(ish) foot tall Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader made out of Legos!

The outside of the cathedral

In front of the massive doors of the cathedral

The crazy interior. Note the large organ hanging on the left side of the aisle.

The crazy massive organ hanging from the wall

 Stained Glass windows inside the cathedral

The bell in the tower about 3/4 of the way to the top

View from the top of the cathedral tower. The Hohenzollern Bridge over the Rhine river is to the left.

We made it to the top! It was windy.

Afterwards, we had to have a power snack (crackers and granola bar) and then we happened upon the philharmonic hall box office. We got tickets for tonight's show and were feeling quite accomplished. We tried to go to a couple museums and a church that we wanted to see, but museums in this area are closed on Mondays. We heard about a Rhine river boat cruise where you could hop on and off during the day in many little towns with castles in the Rhine Valley. We went to check it out but found that we would have to take a train out of the city off an hour and a half, and then only be allowed to get off the boat once. So very pretty scenery of towns, but not actually getting to explore them. That along with being on a boat for 10 hours wasn't exactly what we were looking for. We decided just to do a 2 hour dinner boat cruise tomorrow night and stop outside of Amsterdam to see some of the countryside of The Netherlands. 

We then decided to walk across the famous Hohenzollern Bridge. This is the most famous bridge in Cologne not because it crosses the Rhine, but because of what people put on it. there are thousands of padlocks on this bridge that lovers have placed on it with their names and then thrown the key in the river. It is insane ow many locks there are. They are on top of one another and making chains as they are linked to one another. We have seen people do this in our other travels in Paris and Prague, but none that are so heavily concentrated as this one! 

The locks that line the fence separating the pedestrian walk from the train tracks

Locks upon locks

By this point, we were quite tired (mostly due to the cathedral steps) so we decided to eat supper before the concert. We found a nice restarant near the river where we could sit outside and had the best meal we have eaten yet! Clayton had wienerschnitzel (German breaded and fried pork) and I had Spaghetti al Forno (Spaghetti with ham, egg, cream sauce and garnished with cheese). Clayton is sorely missing soft drinks so he had a 4.50 Euro ($6.97) glass of sprite (no refills over here). Meanwhile I discovered my new favorite wine: a sweet red wine called Lambrusco. It was a lovely dinner!

View of the Bridge and the cathedral from the opposite side

Our dinner: Clayton's wienerschnitzel and my spaghetti al forno

We were told that the philharmonic hall opened at 7pm, an hour before the show started so that is when we arrived. People rushed in at 7 when the doors open and sat in chairs sat up on the upper floor. We sat nearby to see what would happen. An older German man came and presumably talked about the music for 45 minutes in German, so we were quite excited when the concert hall doors were opened. The hall was beautiful! Our seats were high up, but not bad at all. We learned that going to an orchestra concert (we had never been before) was definitely a new cultural experience. The mean age of the audience was probably between 55-60 so we were already outliers. An older man eyed me when I took a few pictures of the hall before the concert started. There was no one on electronic devices the entire concert. It seemed as though no one breathed until the piece was over. When someone sneezed, it could be heard across the entire hall. And perhaps oddest of all is the amount of clapping there was. After a piece there was literally about 5 minutes of clapping and the conductor leaving the stage and then returning to bow, then leaving again and then coming back to bow. There was no hooting or audible cheering, only clapping (At the end there was a "Bravo!"). It was a wonderful concert and we are intrigued to see one in D.C. to compare them. 

From our seats

The Orchestra

We walked home after the concert at 10pm. However, it was not completely dark. There is so much daylight here; the sun doesn't start going down until 9:45pm and comes up a little after 5am. It is a little weird to get used to. Anyway, it has been another great day in Cologne and now it is time to rest! Goodnight!