vango

We arrived at Cologne about an hour early and the captain sailed past the cathedral to give us a view from the river then turned around and sailed to our docking position near the Chocolate museum. We didn't actually have a dock but were parked up against the seawall. We exited the ship from the Sun Deck. ;The downside of this arrangement for us was that the gangway was directly over our room. There was creaking and moaning all night long as the ship rode up and down in the water. Sometimes it sounded like a bad trumpet solo while at other times it was more like a moaning person. The notes were occasionally accompanied by a timpani sound.
The evening program was a pub crawl. About half the boat went so they had to break up the tour and sent some to various bars. Many were back by midnight.



Köln was a Roman town so there are Roman ruins and an excellent Roman Museum. It is the fourth largest city in Germany after Frankfort, Berlin and Munich. Ninety-three percent of the city was destroyed by Allied Bombing in WWII but the cathedral only sustained 10 percent damage. It gets 2500 cruise ships a year bringing tourist to town. The main attraction is the Cathedral with the tallest facade in Europe. The Towers are 157 meters tall and for the ambitious you can climb to the top. The church's prized possession is the Reliquary of the Magi.. A big gold box at the high alter purports to hold the remains of the Three Kings of the East that visited the Christ child in the stable. What they don't explain is how three wise men from the east all died near the same time, were put in the same box and shipped to the far northwestern edge of the Roman Empire.

We didn't take the tour provided Wednesday morning through the city of Cologne. I went to bed very early but I needed more rest so we did Cologne as a day of rest. I did venture over to the Hay Market to buy some chocolate and take some pictures to prove we were here.

It was raining so much the night before that I thought we would be loading animals two by two. By morning it was a beautiful day and all the tours went out on time. Just before lunch Ron and I ventured to the skydeck and took pictures.of ourselves with some landmarks.