A long day in Köln

Due to the particulars of international jet travel, yesterday turned out to be an extraordinarily long day, lasting from around 2:30am until 10:30pm.  I confess, I did have a small nap in the afternoon, but really it was so short I think it did neither good nor harm.  A long day in a good, walkable city, yes, that's what it was.  I like me cities, and Köln was a city with stuff to like.

I will first briefly comment on the relative sense of calm and order that one experiences in certain European.  The inside of my brain is a very hectic and confusing place and interfacing with a realm where things run on time and have purpose can do a lot to alleviate other, more anxious areas of my personal life.  Areas such as "Why hasn't my luggage arrived yet?" and "I cannot decide where to have lunch."  I'm not claiming any kind of superiority of orderly locales over the more free-flowing and spontaneous places on earth, just that sometimes it's nice when other people are taking care of parts of the world around you, even when it comes at the price of the entire pedestrian traffic waiting at a street crossing on a narrow, empty street for the light to turn green.

Look, it's our old friend the cathedral,
except this time, I can focus on it!
Early morning, before all those tourists
come out and spoil the view.

I decided to commence searching for früstück at around 7am.  No, I won't go in to the tedious details of what I ultimately found and I have no overly processed digital photos of it to share.  I will say that I was the only one awake and nothing was open yet.  So I walked around with the whole city to myself.  Even when busy the place feels peaceful, but when nobody is around it's even more so.  Having the place to myself made me feel like it was mine, so when later, the other people came out for their bier and sausage, I felt like I was the local.  Sure, a local who didn't speak the language nor know his away around, but that didn't matter to me much.  In fact, someone did at one point ask me for directions.  I sent her along somewhere and hope some day she will find her way back from it.

I soon learned that Köln is a right old city and has more history to it than I can ever possibly know.  Unfortunately, like all too many cities in Europe, particularly Germany, much of the city was destroyed in the last century.  I don't know if the bombardment of Köln was ever the right thing to do.  Was doing it helping to stop bad guys, or were those who were responsible trying to inflict a degree of punishment on the common people for their real or perceived misdeeds?  I'll leave these questions for military historians for the time being as we can all acknowledge that many of the things destroyed there belonged to all of humanity, and right or wrong it's saddening.  The destruction is present in all the remaining history.  Most of the things left were bravely rebuilt after the war.  I say it's brave given the scarcity that was omnipresent after the Second World War, and the courage required to commit what scant resources there were to rebuilding things that came from enormous wealth.

The historical monuments that stood out most to me were that there are what are known as The Twelve Romanesque Churches.  As I walked around the city (and I walked a lot) I kept discovering these churches wherever I went.  Quickly I began to start to look for them.  Finding them was like a little game.  I should have had a stamp booklet where I could put a sticker in a page each time I found one.

It is my pleasure to present to you
Great St. Martin and the streets of
Altstadt #2,304,563.

The first one I found was Great St. Martin.  It's hard to believe but so much of it has had to be rebuilt (see the "before" photo on the wikipedia page).  This is in an area of town called The Old City (North) or in local-speak Altstadt-Nord.  My hotel is right on the border between Altstadt-Nord and Altstadt-Süd (can anyone guess what Süd means?).  Good location if you plan to spend the day alternating between exploring the city and checking to see if your luggage has arrived.

Also in Altstadt-Nord are the plethora of museums and culture (excluding the chocolate and mustard museums), the giant Cathedral pictured above and loads and loads of Brauhauses, of which I shall remark later.

After finding a light früstück mit kaffee I needed to attend to luggage finding, but after, I headed off to the south, where I found out that the chocolate museum and the mustard museum were right across the road from each other!  The city could not have planned that one better.  Unfortunately, it was so early that everything was still closed.  So I kept on walking and started to discover another of landmarks that I could start collecting.  City gates!  It's easier to see all of them because there are three.  However, they are rather far apart from one another since they were actually things that sat on the outside of the city.

Oops, sorry, trying not to photo graph you
too.  Almost was run over by a truck.

The first one was called Severinstor.  I happened upon it when I was actually began searching for the legendary German cuisine known as Turkish kabobs for an early lunch (früstück was kind of small).  Then I went and found the kabob.  Now, the kabob is a special thing, from my England days.  One thing that Europe has all over the US no matter where you go is kabobs.  In fact, the only really place I've ever found that is at all similar is a little joint in Mountain View.  Who would have thought?  At any rate, I found my kabob and wouldn't you know it, I had to try it with sauerkraut.  Well, why not?  Well, a German-Turkish kabob is what I was looking for and I found it and all was right.

I realized by this point that I should have rented a bicycle.  I returned to my hotel, checked for my luggage, and then tried to rent a bicycle, but they were all out.  Recommendation: If you are up so early like me, rent the bicycle.  It would have been great.

A little later on, I went to the mustard museum.  I didn't want to go on the tour, but I did buy the fellows mustard recipe book, and some mustard, of course.  I was hoping that it would have recipes for how to make mustard, but instead it has recipes for what to do with the mustard once you've made it.  It's also in German.

This one of St. Ursula came out well, so
since I don't always make nice photos I
thought I would share it.

By this point, finding the churches has been in full swing.  It really is nice when you find one.  It's like ticking off names when you find survivors from a plane crash.  Ah yes, here is Kunibert.  And now it's Ursula.  Oh look, I have unexpectedly found Maria and Severin!

I walked up north past the main train station and found Eigelsteintor gate.  I walked and walked.  I think I really like to do this walking thing!

In the evening I visited a Brauhaus that was recommended to me by a friend (which happened to be near the third gate, Hahnetor, so BING, hit all three gates).  I don't know about the rest of Germany but Köln really has a lot of these Brauhauses.  And the local beer is this stuff called Kölsch, which is served in it's own wee glass, rather than the usual towering liter that one seems to get everywhere else.  I'm not a big fan of beer in general, but you know, when in Köln... I have to say though, it really is quite nice.  Fairly light, not tart and a flavor.  I cannot recall at this time what the flavor was like, but it was good all the same.  I guess there will be more of this beer drinking on this trip.

It turns out to be non-trivial to take a selfie along with
a full-sized bronze chap from 1823.

I really liked the Brauhaus.  It somehow reminded me a little bit of old New York.  There are many of these halls, some for tourists, richer ones, poorer ones, although I think I was directed to one with actual Kölners.  When you walk in you are kind of expected to know what's going on, but I was able to find someone who explained things to me, which was a good idea because I probably did better with the English menu than I would have with the German one.  They like to put strangers at the same table, so I got up real close to a few conversations that I was entirely unable to follow.  It was noisy, but not an obnoxious ear piercing noisy, I think mainly because they don't jack up music like all the bars in the US.  There was a simple system for tracking the number of beers you had, plus a means by which you could signal to the waiter to STOP I CAN'T DRINK ANYMORE.  I had only 3.  Or is that a lot?  I don't know, it was enough.

Anyway, better speed off in an orderly fashion now.  It's früstück time, and then I need to spend the rest of the day worrying about my luggage and traveling to Aachen.