Where the River meets the River

Day 141

I woke up leisurely and took my time getting my act together. I had a day trip planned, but it wasn´t far away and there were loads of trains so I didn´t have a time frame to follow. I was headed to Koblenz for the day.

Now, I´ve only been in Germany for about 4 days but I must say that I am very disappointed with the trains. Three out of the four I have taken have been late at this point. The trains themselves are very nice, and the conductors are more helpful than anywhere else. The late thing is just driving me crazy though.

The tourist office was right at the train station in Koblenz and I had no problem finding it and getting a map. It was a bit of a walk to the old town, but I didn´t mind. It was a bit warm, but there was still a nice breeze going on. After about 40 minutes I had found what I came for. Koblenz is where the Rhein and Mosel rivers meet. I had expected the water to be more turbulent, but it was very calm. Only the tour boats created any ripples. It was really quite magnificent. I didn´t just want to stand around in the sun, but I didn´t want to leave either. I decided to grab a beer at the uber touristy beer garden right next to the rivers. It was one of those fabulous travel moments. All the tourists, mostly British, seemed to fade away. It was just me, the rivers and a really good lager.

Eventually it was time to move on. I decided to just wander the cute city. There are a lot of half timbered buildings to check out and hidden squares to explore. I ducked into the Florinskirche for a few minutes. It dates back to the 12th century. I think it must have been rebuilt though, it didn´t look very old.

My next stop was the Mittelrhein Museum. My guidebook said that this had a large collection of local art over the past few hundred years. This wasn´t quite true. It basically had overflow artwork from existing and bits from destroyed cathedrals. One of the guys working there was kind enough to read a bunch of the descriptions to me. They had a special exhibit on wooden carvings of Mary and baby Jesus. They had them arranged chronologically so that you could see how she changed from severe and kinda scary, to caring and comforting.

When I had finished with the museum I sat in a square and had a rather belated lunch. I had packed myself a salad sandwich.

For some reason the train back to Frankfurt took hours longer than the train to Koblenz had taken. As soon as I got back I headed to the internet cafe to update blog.

After making dinner and having a beer with some nice Austrian s at the hostel bar I headed up to bed. I had an early day and didn´t want to miss my train.

Places to See

Day 140

The morning tour at the Dom wasn´t until 10:30 so I had a bit of time to kill. I was sort of lazy and spent some time reading in my bed.

This was my third time in the Dom. I walked around a bit, but I really wanted to save it for the tour. Like normal, when the tour began I pulled out my notebook so that I could take notes. I wasn´t the only one doing this. It turned out that a local paper was writing a story on tourism in Köln and wanted to find out what people thought of the Dom. They asked almost everyone in the group questions except for me. It was bit frustrating. I think that I alone would make a good story!

Construction began on the Dom about 760 years ago. It replaced a smaller building that no longer fulfilled the towns needs. The church was constructed to house the relics of the three kings, or magi. The problem was that they kept running out of money. For quite some time only the apse was finished, and the relics were placed there. Building continued intermittently up until 1560 when the reformation began. People lost all desire to continue the church. It was basically a large shell at this point. During Napoleon's occupation it was used as a warehouse and a prison. It wasn´t until 1802 when there was a resurgence in German nationalism and that it was decided that the cathedral was important and should be finished. They stuck close to the original plans and the cathedral was finished in 1880. During WWII the Köln was flattened, but somehow the cathedral survived.

There are some really fabulous pieces are art here as well. The three maji´s container is just amazing. It took 30 years to build and is mostly gold. The oldest wooden sculpture of Christ on a cross is here. It dates from 973. Most of the stained glass in the apse is from the middle ages. It´s amazing to think that it has survived for so long. The crypt was a bit boring though, no bones.

After the tour was a slide show. I thought that it was a bit boring. Afterwards one of the other people on the tour asked why I was taking notes. I explained about blog. His name was Brian, he was an American that had been studying and working in Germany for a year. Today was his last day before his flight home to Wyoming.

We decided to go to the Chocolate Museum together. The entrance ticket included a small piece of chocolate. It was very good. We were then given a very detailed description of the labour intensive process that is harvesting coco beans. It´s really amazing that a Hershey bar only costs a dollar. There was a small rain forest to walk thru, but that just made me sweaty. Then there was the chocolate factory that actually made chocolate. I liked the fountain with more free samples.

When Brian and I had bought some chocolate we decided to go for a typical German lunch. I had some pork thing with some potato thing that sort of had the consistency of mashed potatoes but was a little different. It was really fabulous.

Brian and I then decided to check out St. Ursula´s church. St. Ursula was a British princess that was being forced to marry. She didn´t want to do this, as she was pious and all that, so she struck a deal with her father. She would marry if she could take her 11,000 best virgin friends on a pilgrimage. They never made it. Instead they were all killed by the Huns near Köln in a terrible massacre. St. Ursula´s is where their bones are kept. There were thousands of bones, well over 11,000 actually. This definitely fulfilled my creep factor for the day.

Brian and I made plans to meet up after diner. On our way to the chapel we had passed a super cheap internet cafe and I headed back there to update blog for a bit and deal with more credit card crap. Brian went off to check out the town gates.

While I was back at the hostel I met Aussie Andrew, also on an RTW and I invited him to join us.

The three of us took the u-bahn to another part of the city and managed to stumble on a really fabulous beer garden. Eventually one of Brians Couchsurfing friends, Patrick showed up with his current guests, Alexandra and Dimitris from Greece. They offered to let me crash with them when I get to Greece. We had a really nice night chatting and getting to know one another. I love how friendly and open travel people are.