Cologne, Germany

Saturday afternoon we all loaded on 2 double-decker buses to depart for Cologne, Germany. They players and their wives rode on the top decks and the coaches were on bottom. Fortunately the buses were very spacious, making our 3 hour trip very comfortable. Jared and I borrowed the great movie "Without Limits" from Gibran to watch on our laptop. By the time we got to our room we only had about an hour and 15 min. to explore before dinner. Cologne is famous for it's gothic style cathedral that towers over the city. It didn't seem to appear too far from our hotel so we set out walking towards it.

After about 35 minutes of walking we arrived. We only had about 10 minutes to spare before we had to start walking back towards our hotel. As you can see the cathedral is beautiful and very unique.

The building of the cathedral began in the 12th century. Before it was even 1/2 way finished the funds ran out. It wasn't until the mid 1800's that construction began again. The cathedral was finally completed in 1892. The most remarkable thing I read is during WWII Cologne was a major target spot for the British army. However, they managed to destroy the city without any harm done to the cathedral. I bought some postcards with pictures of the city in 1945 with the surrounding buildings demolished and the cathedral untouched.

To get to the cathedral from our hotel we had to walk across the Rhine River. The bridge over the Rhine was a spectacular place to view the city of cologne. Although we only spent a very short amount of time in the city, we were still able to get a glimpse of it's culture. Someone else stated that Cologne is the "San Francisco" of Germany. The people freely expressed themselves in their appearance and actions. I think it was more shocking to Jared and I because that is what we least expected. We've realized one thing that is truly amazing about Europe is that you can travel 3 hours and enter a new city (or country for that matter) and experience a drastically different culture and lifestyle. We look forward to our future travels!