Continued from Fussen-Cologne Day 1 Part 2.
We slept in this morning! I felt like we’ve been going nonstop since all our friends met up with us in Munich, so it’s nice to get a lazy start to the day.
Lazy start means we have time to look at the map the front desk gave us when we checked in. They’ve got a section for escorts!!
Cross the main station to get to the other side.
Of course, part of the Dom is under renovation.
Lots of construction area here.
At least there’s a good side with no visible ongoing renovation.
This is like the Cologne equivalent of Hofbrauhaus, this is the Fruh beer house. We’ll be meeting up with JB here for lunch and beers.
As we were about to enter Fruh, we spotted JB walking just ahead of us.
Before JB could see us, RL runs by for a successful sneak attack ass pinch.
Inside Fruh, very nice.
Kolsch, the Cologne style of beer. Refreshing and delicious. They are served in these small 0.2 liter glasses.
The waiter marks down on a piece of coaster how many beers you’ve had by the number of marks on the edge. Speaking of our waiter, he’s the friendliest waiter we’ve had since we’ve arrived in Germany. Reading up on Cologne, it seems like people are much nicer here than Bavaria, and we are feeling it already.
Time to chow!!! Yum!!!
RL got this dish called heaven and earth. It’s blood sausages with apples(heaven) and potatoes(earth). I don’t know what the blood sausage had to do with anything, but this is a local dish and its really, really good. All three of us tried it and liked it a lot.
Since the beers are so small, and you drank so many beers, there is a special carrier for the beers that the waiters carry around.
We like this spot. It’s less rowdy and more friendly. All three of us are thinking we’ll like Cologne.
After lunch, time to check out the Dom.
It’s too big to fit all into my lens.
Polka dots.
He was playing Under Paris Skies check spelling!!! A song that I also play on my accordion, except he played a more difficult rendition about 100 times better than me. It was incredible, and I gave him some money. Well worth it.
It’s Sunday and mass is happening right now, so we weren’t sure if we could go into the cathedral right now.
But apparently, the stairs to the top of the South tower is open!!
It starts out in the basement of the cathedral.
Old ruins, not sure what it is, probably Roman. There are bits of Roman ruins all over the city.
Tickets.
Now, ready to feel the burn. It’s just a bit over 500 steps to the observation level.
…That looks a bit like blood.
Work those legs!!!
Some of the steps have been replaced, but some of the other ones still show lots of wear.
More blood?
Came out to the flat area. Are we there?
Nope, not even close. There’s still much more to go. The stairs here start out wide, then eventually lead to even smaller spiral stairs.
This is an incredible church, there are stone carvings EVERYWHERE!!!
Finally reached the top. The underbelly of one of the domes. Sweet!!!
The Rhine river.
The building with all the individual, wave-like roofs is the Ludwig Museum.
Germans never miss out on a chance to graffiti.
Yup, stone carvings do break and fall off. I wonder how many people have died from being hit by one of the fallen pieces. A church this big and this old, there’s gotta be a piece of rock breaking off all the time.
You can see one of the more recent and bigger breaks here.
Dead bird.
More broken pieces.
Crazy amazing details on everything.
More dead birds.
Time to head down. This will be a little easier than going up.
From the stairs down from the tower, it seems like the cathedral may have opened up for visitors now.
Let’s go in and see if mass is over.
Cool, visiting hours now.
Every single window in this church is a stained glass.
Yup, even those windows on top are stained glasses.
Due to the lighting, one side of the cathedral had much warmer lightening than the other side.
Cool, that was that.
A roman gate that’s over 2000 years old.
A life sized model of the topper on top of the two spires.
How do they even hold that construction scaffolding up there?
Why is it that Falun Gong can get people to protest for them all over the world about mistreatment in China? What happened to Free Tibet? Or Save Darfur? Either way, I am just always surprised that Falun Gong can get people to protest for something so seemingly inconsequential compared to other causes.
Entering Ludwig Museum.
Too bad we’ll miss the pop art exhibit by 4 days.
First, the cafe to get something to drink. I am really thirsty!!! Damn Germany and having no water anywhere for free. I like Cologne, the people are nice here. Even the museum ticket booth guy had a sense of humor. I first asked him the way to the cafe, so he pointed there. Then I asked him for a map, and he asked if I needed map for the cafe….or the museum. Hah. Germans with a sense of humor, nice.
Nice, they even have a live jazz band here!!
Here we go, water. I ended up spending $10 fucking dollars on water. On water that wasn’t even enough to quench my thirst! Germany, land of Porsche, Audi, Mercedes, BMW, and the world’s biggest desert devoid of water!!!
Best damn cup of coffee(to the right) that I’ve had to the trip. RL had some laced coffee with chocolate and amaretto in it which she said was AMAZING.
To be continued at Cologne Day 2 Part 2.