We arrived at Koln early morning at 7am (train was again late by some 20 minutes) and the first thing to greet us on as we set foot in the mainland was a mammoth station. What a sight. And with no clue as to what to do, we went to the Tourist Information centre to get some gyan on what all to see and where to find a good youth hostel. Soon we were directed to a closeby youth hostel which did take some searching though It was quite close to the station. We convinced the lady that we were here only for few hours and we wanted to put our luggage there and use none of the facilities, she obliged by renting us their locker for free.. so sweet.. On our way from the hostel to the Rhine banks where we would make our plan for the day. The Rhine was already bustling with activity – tourist boats as well as the ones shipping out cargo.
And as soon as we turned around we knew where to go. The largest cathedral of Germany (I forget what its called) and by god that was some sight.
Towering above us we looked like tiny dwarves make that ants near those towers. Went inside the cathedral and it was even more beautiful from the inside. I cant tell you who all were there on all those windows or the ones on those pillars but by god that was some architecture. Everytime I see anything as huge as magnificent as that, I always wonder – how exactly did they manage to build these things back then. Superb. And then after some more time spent in the cathedral we roamed around to see what all were there around that place, and it seemed that most of the things to be seen in Koln were very close to each other. Good. So we went to the Ludwig museum, closed. Another museum next to that. Closed. Dammit it was 9am and they were all closed even then. While roaming around the church we saw a sign which said that at 1 euro u could make your way to the top of one of the towers of the church. That was 100metres and that definitely seemed like a good investment. Boy was soo wrong, these germans had actually built steps around one single pillar and that was the route were supposed to take to go to the top. And man it was tiring and scary at the same time. Oooof. Finally reached the top and it was all worth the effort, a spectacular view of the entire city from up there and you could even see the place where there was going to be a concert held later at 12 noon.
The descent was even more scarier though not so difficult. And finally after getting down it was time to go the famous Ludwig Museum. And at that time there was an exhibition of Roy Lichtenstein’s work as well. Now am not sure exactly who he was at that moment so I think I am not the best person to describe the (2.5hrs) spent there, but then it was well spent I guess.
After this we went to the Chocolate museum while we found out that that required another 5 euros as entry fees, so we satisfied ourselves with chocolates for the time being from the shop there. Lindt apparently had setup the exhibition with a lot of thought behind it and they prepared a fresh batch of chocolate every time a bunch of visitors came into the museum. Naaice. Some snooping into some of the supermarkets told us that everything was cheaper compared to the Scandinavian countries and that was definitely good news. On the same day a triathalon was being held in the city – cycling, marathon as well as swimming.
And the whole city was geared up for the event, people had come to cheer up family as well as friends and there was definitely no shortage of old, young, male, female literally everybody had turned up. It was a good way to get the city together. We should have more of those of marathon things in the city. Finally at 5 pm we decided to make way to the station and then on our way to Frankfurt. And guess what . we meet turakhia (for the uninitiated he is the topper from my college and my class mate in first year) He was also in Koln on the same day however he had arrived at 12noon and since we were going to his house only in Frankfurt it was mighty convenient. After an hr of train jouney from Kobleinz we were at his house and now that we know the address we can easily make way to that place whenever we are in that area. Sudeep was a good host and he even served us pizza for dinner, and finally we slept off at 2330 ready to get up tmrw morning at 730 to go to Berlin, the Capital and the place which has had such a action packed history in the recent decades that it is literally a history class for the tourist. Hope it is that good. Am sure it would be.
No comments:
Post a Comment