I discovered that a lot of Cologne is shut on Sundays, and of course, the churches have their services in the mornings, so visiting them was out. Unfortunately, the tourist information office also failed to tell me that the museums all shut on Monday, as it would have been useful to know this for today - but I didn't; however, from what I've been able to find out, I'm not sure that the museums are a highlight of Cologne (I could be wrong, of course).
On my own, I did find out that Bonn is fairly close, so I thought that I'd head there this morning, to check it out. After all, at Salzburg I saw the birthplace of Mozart, so with Beethoven's birthplace so close, it made sense to see that too (for no other reason than I could).
Bonn is easily accessible by train from Cologne, with the 30km trip south taking around 30 minutes. Founded in the first century BC as a Roman settlement, Bonn is one of Germany's oldest cities. From 1597 to 1794, Bonn was the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and residence of the Archbishops and Prince-electors of Cologne. Located in the very south of the Rhine-Ruhr region, and with a population of 309,869 within its administrative limits, the city is the second official residence of the President of Germany, the Chancellor of Germany, the Bundesrat, and the first official seat of six German federal ministries. I soon discovered that the local tourist information office have clearly shared processes with their Cologne cousins. |
Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) officially Hohe Domkirche St. Petrus, (High Cathedral of St. Peter) is the Archdiocese of Cologne. It is a renowned monument of German Catholicism and Gothic architecture and is a World Heritage Site.
It is Germany's most visited landmark, attracting an average of 20,000 people a day.
Construction of Cologne Cathedral commenced in 1248 and was halted in 1473, leaving it unfinished. Work restarted in the 19th century and was completed, to the original plan, in 1880. It is 144.5 metres long, 86.5 m wide and its towers are approximately 157 m tall. The cathedral is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe and has the second-tallest spires (after Ulm Minster). Its two huge spires give it the largest façade of any church in the world. The choir has the largest height to width ratio, 3.6:1, of any medieval church.
Let's get one thing straight - this place is vast: covering almost 8,000 square metres of floor space and able to hold more than 20,000 people. Today the cathedral is Cologne’s second-tallest structure, surpassed only by the telecommunications tower.
You can also climb one of the towers - so I did (of course); this is the tallest tower that I've climbed, with the observation deck at 100 metres, which meant 533 steps up - and 533 down!
Unfortunately, the powers that be have put a fairly tight mesh wire cage around the observation deck, so it's impossible to get a full panoramic view, however by putting the lens of the small camera through the wires, I was able to get a few shots - they're not great, but they give you an idea:
Once on the other side, you naturally get views back to ... the cathedral.
There are useful graphics on the glass surrounds, to help you locate the main sites visible from the deck.
And this is where the Cologne tourist information office demonstrated the lengths that they will go to in order to provide as little actual "tourist information" as possible.
I went in and asked quite directly if they had any information on palaces in the region. The response floored me - "We don't have any palaces in the area; there are castles, but you'd have to go to Koblenz, which is about 90 minutes away." Hmmm, I wondered - what had I missed? So, I asked if they had any information on them, and after a quick search was told, no.
Thinking I might need to be a little more direct, I asked about the possibility of there being a palace at Bruhl; the response was a more positive "Yes, there is a castle there." Obviously I would have to help this tourist information officer to provide any actual tourist information, so I asked if she actually had any information on this tourist site. "Oh yes," she responded, turned around and passed me a brochure entitled "Living Witnesses of the Rococo - World Heritage Site Bruhl Palaces"
Now, perhaps I'm being a little tough here, but you would think that when someone specifically asks about palaces, and you have a brochure on a palace within 10-15km of the city, you might actually think that this might be the sort of tourist information that the person might find useful!
Realising that without actually knowing the information that I needed before I asked for it, I decided that I was now in possession of all that would come my way, I headed back to the apartment.
And that is why I put the Cologne Tourist Information Office as the worst that I have dealt with on this trip - nudging aside the nearby Bonn Tourist Information Office, with the third prize going to the Munich Tourist Information Office - so that's 3 out of 3 for Germany!