Today we stopped in Cologne Germany. Since it was Monday, museums were closed so we our great guide, Michael, took us on a nice tour of the city ending with the Grand Cathedral.
Day on the boat was nice as well, we had massage demonstrations and I signed up for a body massage and for a relexology massage. I had a the body massage today since parts of my body are really mad at me over all the stairs, cobble stone, steep inclines and travel in general. It was nice, but didn't hold a candle to my favorite massage therapist, Kathy. It threatened to rain, but in the end didn't
Picture 1 was a typical street in Cologne, narrow and passable by very small car, motorcycles, bikes or people just walking.
Picture 2 is inside the Cologne Cathedral, which is just magnificent. This is a sample of the stained glass.
Picture 3 is looking down river from us at the row of river boats. I didn't realize river cruising was so big and this is just the start of the season. They told us at high season boats will be lined up next to each other and passengers have to pass across another boat to get to shore.
Picture 4 is the town hall in the distance. Although it looks like a religious building, it has many figures on it that represent those people who donated so it could be built.
Picture 5 is the main entry to the cathedral. Over 1100 trains a day passed through Cologne all burning diesel (now they are electric) and so the cathedral is quite stained. The lighter section is an area that has been cleaned. They discovered they can clean the building without deteriorating the stone by using lasers. This section took 3 years to complete.
Picture 6 is of some typical buildings of Cologne and were near our boat. The grey building has the number 1685 on it, which is not the address but the year that it was built. As in Amsterdam, taxes were levied based on the width of buildings, so rather than adding horizontially to a building, they added additional levels to a building because that was not taxed.
Picture 7 is of the bridge near our boat that trains use. Even today over 1,000 trains cross it. The red train is the regular train and the white train is the high speed train like the one I took from Madrid to Barcelona.
Picture 8 is of a typical apartment house with wysteria growing up it. There had been an effort in Cologne to "green" with the growing of plants around and on apartment houses. An 800 sf apartment is about $1,500 Euro per month. The $1,000 is for rent and the $500 is for the anticipated cost of your utilities, which are billed annually after the end of the year. Our guide said typically you paid your monthly anticipated cost ($500 euros per month) and then another $1,500 to $2,000 euros when you got your bill because what was anticipated was not enough.
Picture 9 is a more complete view of the Cathedral of Cologne. The dark color is from the diesel locomotives that used to come through Cologne.
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