Cologne

We woke up this morning still sailing along the Rhine.  We won’t arrive in Cologne until 2pm, so we get an unusual “day at sea”.  We are now in Germany, and spent the day just meandering along the Rhine. 

Our German cruise Director gave a lecture about the Rhine, detailing some of the geographical, historical, demographical, and nautical information.  Important facts like how the Rhine got 50 kilometers shorter over time.  It meandered too much, making it difficult to navigate, so they dug a small straight canal about 15 feet wide and when they released the water, the torrents “dug” a straight, full-sized riverbed all on its own—shortening the river by 50 kilometers!

Another interesting aspect of the river is the large variety of bridges crossing the Rhine.  Because during World War II, nearly every bridge was bombed by the Allies, nearly every bridge on the Rhine is “new”. 

After arriving in Cologne, we went on a walking city tour.  Cologne is the 4th largest city in Germany, behind Berlin, Munich, and Hamburg.  It a city of one million, it is best known for the perfumeries borrowing its name.  In the 1700’s, a perfumer made the name world famous by naming his new fragrance after his hometown—Eau de Cologne.

Cologne also owns Germany’s most visited monument, the Cologne Cathedral.  The cathedral is so big that ranks number one as the world’s largest front facade.  Not the tallest, not the biggest, but the largest front face (but it is pretty big!).  And although 95% of Cologne was leveled by the bombs of World War II, the cathedral, although damaged, was still standing.  The cathedral’s main claim to fame is that it houses the bones of The Three Wise Men from the Christmas Story.

All of Europe (and in fact the whole world) seems to be struggling with immigration issues.  England is ready to drop out of the European Union because of immigration issues.  All of the countries are complaining about immigration because once a person is in an EU country, they are granted the freedom to travel to any other EU country and receive benefits from whichever country they live in.  Well, last weekend there were anti-immigration rallies in Cologne in the square surrounding the Cathedral.  45 policemen were hospitalized after the rallies turned violent.  So our tour today ended there at the cathedral and after we went inside to view everything, crowds were gathering outside, people were shouting or chanting or something, pretty soon lots of police began arriving, lots of foreign flags were being unfurled, and I told Maridee, I think we should be leaving before something starts up again!  And so we did!

 

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