We tried to get another photo of the ship.
We started with a city walk excursion that took us around the city center. Cologne is an interesting city for several reasons...
1) Cologne citizens are very relaxed. They’re not like typical Germans who are strict about tasks and schedules. Their motto is, “Whatever happens, happens.”
Mike Schmitt, are you sure your family isn’t from Cologne? 🙂
The cathedral (2nd largest gothic cathedral in the world) took over 600 years to build.
2) Cologne was a key city during WW2. It was one of the main cities the US used when they joined the war - so it suffered a lot of bombing. It was pretty devastated with only the cathedral left standing (the cathedral itself was bombed 14 times) so the architecture is now very mixed between old and modern.
3) Because the city is divided by the river there is a rivalry - The main side (where we spent the day) thinks people from the other side are elitist and they say those folks are cross-eyed because they have one eye looking at where they’d rather be from. Here’s a statue that represents both sides.
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That’s our guide, Robin. He’s Norwegian.
Here’s a better look at the cross eyed guy from the other side of the river.
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After our tour we went into the cathedral. Look at this window from the outside...
And now from the inside - Amazing!
Also the three wise men are buried in this church! They’re in this box!
If you look from the altar they’re in that gold box way in the distance.
The cathedral is beautiful.
Oh! I meant to point out - When you’re looking at this photo - The light stone areas of the church (like in the lower left side) are the areas hit by bombs that had to be restored.
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After exploring that we went over to the Modern art museum - The Ludwig Museum.
They have a very large Picasso collection.
Mike is assessing a Miro.
I have always loved Miro - First of all because I thought he was a woman for a very long time. And 2nd because I always thought his art was so carefree and happy. It wasn’t until we went to the Miro museum in Barcelona (many years ago) that I learned he was a he and also quite depressed. Miro has taught me a lot about art!
Adler calls this one, “cats,” but I like to call it “Dellbert and Chloe.”
Since it’s our last day in Germany we decided we would have a traditional German meal. We went to a Beer house - Brauhaus where we had the beer of Cologne - the Kolsch.
And Mike had knuckle - and dumplings.
And I matched the decor.
We had a lovely walk along the river back to the ship.
This afternoon we played “name that tune” on the ship. We teamed up with some real music buffs and ended up winning!
We even got a certificate!
We toured the galley with the chef and learned that they have flagged Mike in the kitchen for his scallop allergy!
Tomorrow is our last day - We’re ready to really whoop it up in Amster Amster dam dam dam!
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