Sunday, December 17, 2006
Sunday December 10, 2006
Good morning! We ate breakfast in the hostel and headed out. Today our plan was to visit the Cathedral and then do some shopping for clothes and such (non-Christmas related).
So we crossed the river again and went to the Cathedral. We learned that the English language tour was being held later in the afternoon, so for now, we contented ourselves by climbing the Cathedral tower.
The Cathedral was completed in 1880. Built in the Gothic style, it took about 600 years to finish. When it was finished, it was the tallest building in the world, at 157 m tall. It was the tallest building for only 4 years though, before the Washington Monument was completed. It remains as the largest church facade in the world, and the largest cathedral in Germany. These tasty tips were gleaned from Wikipedia.
After paying our admission, we climbed 509 steps to the observation level of the tower. There was only one spiral staircase going up and down the tower, and it was barely wide enough for two people to stand beside each other, especially on the extremely narrow steps on the inside of the spiral. It was sort of sad to see the huge amount of graffiti in the staircase.
Climbing 509 steps doesn't take as long as you think, and soon we were at the top, where we were treated to a gorgeous view.
From high up, we could look down on the cute little Christmas market in the adjacent square.
We managed to climb down again and continue our look around. Cologne was founded by the Romans nearly 2000 years ago. Right in front of the Cathedral are the remains of an Roman arch built in a wall. It's amazing how old the arch is!
At this point we learned a horrible truth. Since it was Sunday, all of the retail shops were closed. Gaaak. Why oh why? I had grown too used to my lackadasial-Ontario-shop-whenever-I-damned-pleased ways. Curses. No clothes shopping for us.
The Christmas markets were still open, so we continued to wander through them instead. We headed back over to the Rhine and found a market on a ship! It was a floating market!
In this market, we managed to find more glühwein. Here's Matt drinking TWO mugs of the yummy stuff! Gasp!
(actually, he's just holding one my mugs, which I was reusing from the day before)
We continued our wander through the old town of Cologne. We found another Christmas market that we perused through. I purchased some hot nuts.
At that point we stumbled onto an ice rink! At that that time, it was being cleaned, but we decided that we would come back later, after our Cathedral tour, to do some skating. We joked that the German Zamboni drivers would never beat a true Canadian Zamboni driver in a race. This guy was just so slow.
So we returned to the Cathedral and had ourselves a little tour. I hope this picture is able to demonstrate how high the vault of this Cathedral is!
This cathedral was built to house the remains of the Three Wise Men, who visited Baby Jesus on Epiphany (January 6). Their remains came to Cologne in 1164. They are housed in a beautiful golden sarcophagus. The remains are displayed every year on Epiphany.
The floors of the cathedral were tiled with pretty pretty mosaics.
In one of the side chapels of the cathedral, there was located a 1000 year old wooden crucifix.
The stained glass windows in the cathedral were quite beautiful, too.
I was amazed to learn that the cathedral had four organs. It was so huge inside the cathedral, that there had to be organs situated in different places, otherwise, the distance between the organ music and the people who were singing was so great that it was difficult to sing.
After the tour finished, we went ice skating. However, at this point, something awful happened. While I was putting on the arctic fleece in my jacket, I managed to wang my camera against a wall. A cracked developed in my LCD screen. The camera would still take pictures, but there was no way to frame them or see them. Doh. This was the second time that I've been to Germany, and it was the second time I broke a camera there. The moral of the story is... NEVER BRING A CAMERA GERMANY! (especially if you are a klutz, like I am) Luckily, Matt had his own camera, so the taking-of-pictures was able to continue, though at a reduced rate.
We still went skating, however. The rink was very crowded, and the ice was chewed up pretty badly. Matt is much better than I am, and was skating circles around me, and the locals. I kept going at my steady forward place, and didn't fall down once! Yay!
So after the skating we decided that it was time for dinner. Earlier the other day, we wandered past a restaurant/bar called Wirtshaus Schewjk. It was a bizarre coincidence, but the theme of this restaurant was a book that I had only finished reading like two days before: The Good Soldier Švejk, by the Czech author Jaroslav Hašek. The book was a satirical look at the bureaucracy surrounding the military of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I, and has been called "one of the funniest books ever written".
We walked past this restaurant several times in our random, aimless wanderings. I simply HAD TO EAT THERE! It's completely acceptable to go to a Czech restaurant in Germany, right?
We went inside, ordered a couple Pilsners and ordered some yummy Czech food. I had some goulash, saeurkraut and knedlíky (boiled, sliced dumplings). Matt had a stuffed schnitzel and roasted potatoes. They were both fine meals. I was amused that all of the menu items were named after characters or locations in the books. Some of the many drawings from the book were hanging on the walls, too!
We managed to take many pictures at this restaurant that amused me so greatly!
The menu!
Our drinks!
Yours truly!
After our yummy food, we settled up and headed out again. Outside the restaurant I found my buddy Švejk again, advertising the resturant menu. He really is a nice guy!
We decided that we weren't done yet and needed to go look for beer. We walked a couple blocks and found ourselves at a pub called the Beer Museum. With a name like that, it had to be good. We walked in and ordered nifty German beers. Matt approved of them very much. The bar was funny inside since they were playing loud happy happy happy German techno music and there were drunken girls in Santa hats dancing to the music. It was pretty clear that they were shmammered. It was particularly funny, since it was only 8 PM. Heh.
After a few beers, we headed on out and started to make our way back to the hostel. On the way we stopped off at the Christmas market beside the Cathedral one last time. There was a party going on! There was a band playing and there was lots of people! Fun times!
The night was wearing on, and we had to wake up early in the morning, so we headed on back to the hostel. We enjoyed a couple more beers there and went upstairs to pack. There were other people in our room and we chatted with them. There was an amusing German guy from Bremen who wouldn't stop talking about basketball. Heh. Eventually it was lights out!
So we crossed the river again and went to the Cathedral. We learned that the English language tour was being held later in the afternoon, so for now, we contented ourselves by climbing the Cathedral tower.
The Cathedral was completed in 1880. Built in the Gothic style, it took about 600 years to finish. When it was finished, it was the tallest building in the world, at 157 m tall. It was the tallest building for only 4 years though, before the Washington Monument was completed. It remains as the largest church facade in the world, and the largest cathedral in Germany. These tasty tips were gleaned from Wikipedia.
After paying our admission, we climbed 509 steps to the observation level of the tower. There was only one spiral staircase going up and down the tower, and it was barely wide enough for two people to stand beside each other, especially on the extremely narrow steps on the inside of the spiral. It was sort of sad to see the huge amount of graffiti in the staircase.
Climbing 509 steps doesn't take as long as you think, and soon we were at the top, where we were treated to a gorgeous view.
From high up, we could look down on the cute little Christmas market in the adjacent square.
We managed to climb down again and continue our look around. Cologne was founded by the Romans nearly 2000 years ago. Right in front of the Cathedral are the remains of an Roman arch built in a wall. It's amazing how old the arch is!
At this point we learned a horrible truth. Since it was Sunday, all of the retail shops were closed. Gaaak. Why oh why? I had grown too used to my lackadasial-Ontario-shop-whenever-I-damned-pleased ways. Curses. No clothes shopping for us.
The Christmas markets were still open, so we continued to wander through them instead. We headed back over to the Rhine and found a market on a ship! It was a floating market!
In this market, we managed to find more glühwein. Here's Matt drinking TWO mugs of the yummy stuff! Gasp!
(actually, he's just holding one my mugs, which I was reusing from the day before)
We continued our wander through the old town of Cologne. We found another Christmas market that we perused through. I purchased some hot nuts.
At that point we stumbled onto an ice rink! At that that time, it was being cleaned, but we decided that we would come back later, after our Cathedral tour, to do some skating. We joked that the German Zamboni drivers would never beat a true Canadian Zamboni driver in a race. This guy was just so slow.
So we returned to the Cathedral and had ourselves a little tour. I hope this picture is able to demonstrate how high the vault of this Cathedral is!
This cathedral was built to house the remains of the Three Wise Men, who visited Baby Jesus on Epiphany (January 6). Their remains came to Cologne in 1164. They are housed in a beautiful golden sarcophagus. The remains are displayed every year on Epiphany.
The floors of the cathedral were tiled with pretty pretty mosaics.
In one of the side chapels of the cathedral, there was located a 1000 year old wooden crucifix.
The stained glass windows in the cathedral were quite beautiful, too.
I was amazed to learn that the cathedral had four organs. It was so huge inside the cathedral, that there had to be organs situated in different places, otherwise, the distance between the organ music and the people who were singing was so great that it was difficult to sing.
After the tour finished, we went ice skating. However, at this point, something awful happened. While I was putting on the arctic fleece in my jacket, I managed to wang my camera against a wall. A cracked developed in my LCD screen. The camera would still take pictures, but there was no way to frame them or see them. Doh. This was the second time that I've been to Germany, and it was the second time I broke a camera there. The moral of the story is... NEVER BRING A CAMERA GERMANY! (especially if you are a klutz, like I am) Luckily, Matt had his own camera, so the taking-of-pictures was able to continue, though at a reduced rate.
We still went skating, however. The rink was very crowded, and the ice was chewed up pretty badly. Matt is much better than I am, and was skating circles around me, and the locals. I kept going at my steady forward place, and didn't fall down once! Yay!
So after the skating we decided that it was time for dinner. Earlier the other day, we wandered past a restaurant/bar called Wirtshaus Schewjk. It was a bizarre coincidence, but the theme of this restaurant was a book that I had only finished reading like two days before: The Good Soldier Švejk, by the Czech author Jaroslav Hašek. The book was a satirical look at the bureaucracy surrounding the military of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I, and has been called "one of the funniest books ever written".
We walked past this restaurant several times in our random, aimless wanderings. I simply HAD TO EAT THERE! It's completely acceptable to go to a Czech restaurant in Germany, right?
We went inside, ordered a couple Pilsners and ordered some yummy Czech food. I had some goulash, saeurkraut and knedlíky (boiled, sliced dumplings). Matt had a stuffed schnitzel and roasted potatoes. They were both fine meals. I was amused that all of the menu items were named after characters or locations in the books. Some of the many drawings from the book were hanging on the walls, too!
We managed to take many pictures at this restaurant that amused me so greatly!
The menu!
Our drinks!
Yours truly!
After our yummy food, we settled up and headed out again. Outside the restaurant I found my buddy Švejk again, advertising the resturant menu. He really is a nice guy!
We decided that we weren't done yet and needed to go look for beer. We walked a couple blocks and found ourselves at a pub called the Beer Museum. With a name like that, it had to be good. We walked in and ordered nifty German beers. Matt approved of them very much. The bar was funny inside since they were playing loud happy happy happy German techno music and there were drunken girls in Santa hats dancing to the music. It was pretty clear that they were shmammered. It was particularly funny, since it was only 8 PM. Heh.
After a few beers, we headed on out and started to make our way back to the hostel. On the way we stopped off at the Christmas market beside the Cathedral one last time. There was a party going on! There was a band playing and there was lots of people! Fun times!
The night was wearing on, and we had to wake up early in the morning, so we headed on back to the hostel. We enjoyed a couple more beers there and went upstairs to pack. There were other people in our room and we chatted with them. There was an amusing German guy from Bremen who wouldn't stop talking about basketball. Heh. Eventually it was lights out!
# posted by Rob Szumlakowski @ 2:00 PM 
