Today i took a slow train to Cologne (or Köln as the locals call it - i like it cos it's shorter and easy to type on a German keyboard). Pretty scenery along the Rhine but by this stage i was a little desensitised towards pretty Rhine scenery. Köln is fantastic cos you come right in to it's main attraction - the DOM (cathedral to all you non-Germans) is smack bang in front of the train station. My aching feet were so pleased.
The DOM is very cool - it is gothic and huge. So huge i think it must be impossible to get a good photo with all of it in the frame. I gave up on that pretty quickly and just shot some nice fragments. It is free to take a look inside (unlike many European attractions). The church is in use as a Catholic cathedral though i honestly don't know if anyone would use the confessional - the place is overrun with tourists (yes, i know it is ironic for me to say that as i was there too along with my LUMIX). I felt so sorry for the priest and all the people actually praying inside. The inside is very cavernous - the highest ceilings i have seen in a church - but at the same time it feels very cosy. Some absolutely gorgeous decoration that must have taken several workers a very long time to do.
After strolling around inside for a bit (and getting told off by the priest for drinking water inside the church) i wasted a great deal of time trying to locate a public toilet - at one i swear stage the sign for the WC was pointing at the sky!!! Ended up giving up and buying a postcard from the museum just to use their loos. It is hard work being a tourist sometimes.
After that debacle i decided i would pay for the privelidge of climbing the 509 stairs up to the DOM's bell tower (2 euros). Never have i been so puffed and hot but i made it all of the way up (only just though - a stairwell wide enough only for one, no passing lanes and only one way up and down do not a happy experience make - especially if you have a backpack on). The stairwell and most bits of the bell tower are covered in grafitti and they have wire netting all the way around but it was still a great view over Köln. And the bells were HUGE! Lucky i wasn't in the tower on the hour or i think i would be deaf.
Didn't see much more of Köln as had to head back down the Rhine towards Mainz (see next story)
