Cologne and Koblenz

Today was our second full day of the river cruise. We sailed overnight and arrived in Cologne (Koln) where we had an excellent walking tour of some of the old part of the city, around their famous cathedral which has a 157 metro high steeple. Our guide was excellent, and this was also our first time using the audiovox system we have each been issued with. We have a small box that hangs around our neck, with an earpiece. We tune into the guide's frequency, and can clearly hear everything he says even when he's moved some distance away.

We heard about how most of Cologne was destroyed during WWII, and saw the old Town Hall, the excavations underground of the ancient Jewish Quarter, and the house where Eau de Cologne perfume was first made. We saw all the padlocks put on the local bridge by lovers. And we heard about the annual 'Carnival' which starts with women carrying scissors around and cutting off men's.... ties; the men are then allowed to kiss the women who do this. Steve reckons he's got quite a few old ties that he could afford to have cut off!

We toured inside the cathedral and heard about its long and interesting history, being built on the site of an even older church. The cathedral was started in 1248 to house the relics of the three magi (the three Wise Men). Construction was stopped and restarted, and it ended up not being completed for almost 600 years! Much of the beautiful stained glass was removed during the war, which actually helped save the church from some of the 15 bombs that landed on it. The blast from the bombs was able to dissipate through the openings where the glass has been removed. This protected the walls and they remained standing. As we left the cathedral, the rain started pelting down, and there was a big thunderstorm.

David and Steve were keen to try out the local beer called Kolsch, so we ducked into a local bar recommended by the guide. The glasses of this beer are very small, and the waiter keeps coming around with a round tray of these glasses and handing them out to the drinkers. If you don't want any more, you need to put your coaster over the top of your glass. Your coaster is marked with how many drinks you've had. The guys had 3 glasses each, and Jan had one. They thought it was a lovely light beer, it didn't have fizz, but has a good froth and a nice after-taste. Our waiter was a real character. This beer is special to Cologne and protected by European law (in the same way champagne is where it's grown in France). While the guys were finishing their beers, Jan and I ducked into a couple of clothing shops. Jan 'passed' on the beautiful Italian scarf that was on special at E150 (half price). I ended up buying a summer sun frock for Michelle for E8.

A bus took us back to the boat in time for another multi-course lunch. The rain was coming and going. We took a chance that it would fine up for the afternoon and took the bus tour to the Buga, a gardening show, which is this year being held in Koblenz. We had a bus trip of an hour and a half upstream along the Rhine to get there, the rain pelting down again on the journey. Luckily it stopped as we arrived. We only took this trip because we thought we would also get to visit an old fort with fabulous views over Koblenz, and accessible by a funicular (gondola). On the journey we saw a nuclear power stack, the power station only being in use briefly, and then being shut down quickly because they realised they'd built it in an area prone to earthquakes.... Apparently they've shut down as many as 11 of these now, after the tsunami in Japan this year. But, they're going to still depend on France for nuclear energy instead, with some more investment in their own solar and wind power as well.

The garden show was a great disappointment, not a lot to see and only there a short time. It wasn't like our flower shows, but had more of a focus on natural farming and care of the environment. I did find interesting a display of gravestones and how they were presented with beautiful flower/garden arrangements. And we saw a display of vegetables being grown organically, and an interesting structure constructed to replicate the echo system used by bats.

We only had a brief opportunity to see the view over Koblenz from one of the structures built for the show, and never went near the fort (apparently the second largest in Europe, after the one in Gibraltar). The trip down in the gondola to the town below took only 3 minutes and getting photographs was difficult.


We had a very quick visit through the church in the town (Basilica of St Kastor), had our photo taken by a statue that looks like a thumb, and looked at an old monument and fountain built in advance to commemorate the expected success of Napoleon's war in Russia. Ironically, Napoleon was defeated on this campaign! But the monument remains. Further along was a statue of Emperor Frederick Wilheim, first Emperor of the newly united Germans in 1888. All of this is at a branch of the Rhine where the Mosel River starts, and goes around Koblenz. It was a very picturesque area.



Next, we caught the bus back down towards Andernach, where the boat was staying overnight. We had an amazing dinner of rack of lamb. I was able to have GF French Onion Soup (minus the bread topping) and dessert was amazing fruit kebabs and crepes, and they had even made GF crepes for the half dozen or so of us who are GF! That was very special. Walnut ice-cream went very nicely with that.

We all sat in the lounge and listened to the onboard musician playing on the piano and singing lovely, popular easy listening songs. He was very, very good. Jan and I started typing up our emails or blogs. A gentleman saw us with our iPads and asked if we could help him with his iPad which had stopped being able to send email since he'd got on the boat. I sat a while but wasn't completely able to solve his problem with this. After a while I headed to bed and got straight to sleep, only to be rudely awoken at 12:45 am by some drunk female Aussie passengers being shown to their cabin a few doors along, by the boat's hotel manager (I saw that because I leapt out of bed, opened the door and asked them to be quiet - there had been a similar noise at 2:45 am another morning). Jan and I intend to ask the management to say something about talking quietly in the corridors at night...