EUROPE DAY 19-22: COLOGNE AND CULTURE

The ship docked in Cologne and so I had an opportunity to see my very first major European cathedral (no, I have not seen Notre Dame, which apparently everyone in the world except me has seen). It is a Gothic architecture style and is truly amazing (I think that word is overused but in this case it applies). I especially liked the gargoyles on the outside because they stick out more than I've seen on other buildings and depicted unusually ugly animals and people, looking somewhat like they were stretching out to get me. Regardless of how you feel about the religion that the building honors, the design and building of the cathedral is an astounding feat of human ingenuity--it took about 600 years to complete. I've never been in a religious building that soars so high inside. And so we spent a goodly amount of time just sitting quietly in several different places and soaking in the grandeur and the many details.

Important note for future travelers: if you plan to really enjoy your visit to a cathedral, be sure to arrive before the hundreds of tour groups show up. We just happened to get there early and very few visitors were there for the first hour we were in there. By 10:00 AM the tours started arriving and although they were fairly quiet it was unpleasant having to dodge clumps of people at every turn. It felt like a very quiet Grand Central Station.

By the time we left it was 10:30 and we were in the mood for a coffee so we sat at an outdoor cafe that faces the front of the cathedral. The pastries were so alluring that we decided we each needed a piece, washed down with Irish coffees, of course, even though it was still morning. I think the cafe was accustomed to crazy tourists. Anyway, we have no idea why, but the cathedral bells started ringing at 11:20, and then another church a couple of blocks away also started ringing bells, and the two played off each other for almost 30 minutes. It was marvelous--we were so lucky to have been there.

The next day the boat arrived in Amsterdam and served as our hotel for the night--we debarked the day after. Because we had plans to stay the next week in Amsterdam, we decided to just stay on the boat and enjoy it for our last day.

Debarking was wonderfully painless--I could get used to living this poshy life. But we entered the real world again, dropped our embarrassing amount of luggage at the hotel, and strode off to figure out how to use the trams. Turns out the trams are pretty easy to figure out and before long we were at the Van Gogh Museum. Normally, I'm not able to sustain much interest when looking at paintings in museums (sculpture is a whole different matter) but I really like Van Gogh. We slowly went through 3 out of the 4 floors in the museum before we both hit our saturation points. And it being Saturday, the place was packed. The whole visit was thrilling nevertheless.

And so it was time for a sit down, which means time for a coffee (or hot chocolate in my case because it is beyond rare to find brewed decaf in Europe outside of a Starbucks) . We found a cute little cafe and started to sit down but were told that the downstairs and outside seating was for diners and the upstairs was for coffee. So up we trudged, up a circular staircase with the smallest and most treacherous stairs I've seen in a long time. It was awful. But the drinks were good. And then we had to face going down. I was genuinely frightened and inched my way down like a 100 year old lady. 

It is Saturday night in Amsterdam and the World Cup soccer championships are being played in Brazil and the Netherlands team won it's first game. In the US, young people pile into cars and drive up and down the Main Street of town whooping and yelling. In Amsterdam, young people pile into boats and drive up and down the canals while drinking and singing and whooping it up. We are appreciating the noise-dampening qualities of our hotel windows.  I am taking tomorrow off and being lazy.