A Weekend in Cologne

Cologne is a place we had never heard of until we chose to visit it in order to catch a Damien Rice concert. Damien was all sold out in the UK and we thought what better excuse to go somewhere unusual than to see a great show. Cologne is an amazing city in Germany. It is the oldest in the country, being built around 30BC by the Romans. It is located on the Rhine river which is like the nile of Europe. Becs and I were pretty nervous about going to Germany as our German speaking skills were zilch but we soon found out that the people of Cologne were not only great english speakers, but they were some of the most polite and hospitable people we had ever met. Before we even had time to start getting lost, people were helping us out with directions and public transport.

You would be right in wondering if this place is connected in any way to mens fragrance. It was invented here back in the 16th century. Men back then used to both drink and wear the stuff making it the perfect singles drink - alcohol to overcome inhibitions and perfume to hide the drunken breath.

On arrival at the airport, we headed outside to a waiting cab where I nearly hopped into the drivers seat thinking it was the passengers side (first time in a left hand drive country), leaving the taxi driver wondering where he should sit. We worked things out pretty quickly and were soon at our hotel just outside the city. The next day we took a tram into the city and started having a wee looksey around the city. One of the features of this city is the Dom Cathedral. This thing is MASSIVE. When you first come across it you feel like you have been confronted by an alien ship from war of the worlds, it is so dominating. If there are any star wars fans out there, it was the same feeling you got the first time you saw Darth Vadars death star... yes it is that big. Im sure it is responsible for a slight wobble in the earths rotation. We decided we needed to climb the 620 stairs to the top of one of the two spires to have a look. It was both tiresome and scary all at the same time, but we were just amazed at the detail that went into this thing. It had hundreds of thousands of tiny stone carved statues on it, even in places where no one looks and it took an amazing 600 years to build. It was started way back when gothic churches were all the rage, then work stopped when it went out of fashion. Then, 200 years later, gothic buildings were all the rage once more and construction recommenced.

In the spirit of the Dom, Cologne does a lot of things in a big way. They have a local beer called Kölsch which is also the name of the local dialect. This has led to the common joke that Kölsch is the only language you can drink. Struggling with the language ourselves, we were keen to try this theory and after a few beverages, we were sure our German improved greatly, although we were still recieving strange looks from the locals. When it came time to try the local breakfast, we were again presented with a great range of food.

It is quite common for breakfast here to consist of freshly baked bread, cheeses and a selection of cold meats. It was wierd at first but very nice indeed and set us up for the day. The hot chocolate is the best we have ever had, probably due to Germanys love affair with cocoa.

The Lindt chocolate factory gave us a great insight into chocolate production and history and not to mention a free sample of the goods. We felt like we were in willy wonkas factory although we were disappointed that there were no oompa loompas.

The Damien Rice concert was packed into a large hall on the outside of the city. We stood at the back and took some sneaky footage although it was pretty dark and hard to get a decent shot of the stage. Damien played a great version of Creep halfway through Blowers Daughter for all you fans out there.

Monday soon rolled around and we hopped onto the train back out to the airport. We couldnt believe how efficient the public transport system here was. We never could work out why the conductors never came and took our money like back home and we figured it was because we got on and off after one or two stops. It wasnt until we were back in England that we were told it was a pre-pay system. We honestly concluded it must have been free as everything seemed so clean, tidy, efficient and friendly in Cologne. Well, if we ever return, we might drop a few extra coins into the system although the clothing shops recieved a nice cut from Becs credit card anyway. So Cologne is down as another great city to visit for the weekend and if it wasnt for the thousands of other great cities in Europe we are yet to visit, Im sure we would return.