Today we drove to Cologne. Petra's husband had to be there for a Trade Fair and Petra met olgamaus.
Here is some information about Cologne (wikipedia):
"Cologne (English pronunciation: /kəˈloʊn/, German: Köln [kœln], Kölsch: Kölle [ˈkœɫə]) is Germany's fourth-largest city (after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich), and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.
Cologne is located on both sides of the Rhine River. The city's famous Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) is the seat of the Catholic Archbishop of Cologne. The University of Cologne (Universität zu Köln) is one of Europe's oldest and largest universities.
Cologne is a major cultural centre of the Rhineland and has a vibrant arts scene. Cologne is home to more than 30 museums and hundreds of galleries. Exhibitions range from local ancient Roman archeological sites to contemporary graphics and sculpture. The Cologne Trade Fair hosts a number of trade shows such as Art Cologne, imm Cologne, Gamescom and the Photokina."
Cologne Cathedral (German: Kölner Dom) is the city's most famous monument and the Cologne residents' most respected landmark. It is a Gothic church, started in 1248, and completed in 1880. In 1996, it was designated a World Heritage site; it houses the Shrine of the Three Kings that supposedly contains the relics of the Three Magi. Residents of Cologne sometimes refer to the cathedral as "the eternal construction site" (Dauerbaustelle).
Cologne Central Station: On an average day, about 280,000 travellers frequent the station, making it fifth busiest station in Germany.
Then we walked down to the Rhine.
We turned around and took a look back to the cathedral.
Here's the Hohenzollern Bridge.
Great St. Martin Churchis a Romanesque Catholic church. Its foundations (circa 960 AD) rest on remnants of a Roman chapel, built on what was then an island in the Rhine. The church was badly damaged in World War II, with restoration work completed in 1985.
We then walked around the Imhoff-Chocolate Museum.
We took a look back to the Hohenzollern Bridge, cathedral and Great St. Martin.
The museum is run by the Schokoladenmuseum Köln GmbH. Since March 2006, the Swiss chocolate manufacturer Lindt & Sprüngli has been its partner in producing exhibits. Prior to that the partner was the Cologne chocolate producer Stollwerck, and the museum was formerly known as the Imhoff-Stollwerck-Museum.
On this photo you can see, how high the water was in 1995 and you can see, where we took the photo with the chocolate girl, where we stand for the view back to the churches and bridge. The yellow line shows the way we walked around the museum and the green line the way, where we came from.
Inside the museum we saw all the machines which are necessary to make delicious chocolate.
There is a real chocolate fountain! We all got wafers dipped into melted chocolate. Yummy!
This equestrian statue shows Frederick William III of Prussia. You can see here, who else is on the base of the statue.
The Heumarkt is beside the Alter Markt the biggest place in Cologne historic city.
There are several small breweries in Cologne. This one is located at the Heumarkt.
It started to rain and we walked back to the cathedral. We entered it and it was so so dark inside, that we had problems to take nice photos. So please excuse the quality.
So this was the last photo of Cologne and we drove back to Bruchsal again.
