Cologne, Germany - Where the Past and Present are equally cherished

Travel Blog No. 4

Ronald J. Jack 

Past  is Prologue

Many, perhaps millions, of cruise-ship passengers have enjoyed the experience of transiting the Panama Canal.  Completed by the Americans, the Isthmian Canal was officially opened on August 15, 1914 and has always been acknowledged as one of the greatest engineering achievements of the 20th Century.  What is forgotten is that the European perspective frequently differs from the American.  The Germans, for example, had something equally grand on the drawing board.  Germany resented the fact that the Dutch port of Rotterdam enjoyed "monopolistic control" of riverine entry into the heart of Europe.  They planned to dig an ALL-GERMAN route, a canal system from the seaport of Emden to the Rhineport of Duisburg - a network 215 kilometres long. The project would have required engineering and investment capital equal to that invested in Panama.  Only one thing could stop such a priority national project -  WW1.   We know the rest of the story. Bled by war, the German people had to abandon old priorities, and concentrate on national recovery. With the rise of the Nazis emerged new ideas about industrial and economic expansion, and yet the waterways remained a vital component of German commerce, as the following diagram explains.

The German waterway network as it existed during WW2.

Our Morning in Magical Cologne

We approached Cologne in brilliant sunshine, but the air was still crisp.  Many guests preferred to enjoy the view in the comfort of the Observation lounge or the Aquavit Terrace (see the ship graphic in Blog No. 2), but several of us scrambled up top for picture taking.  Memorable were the five minutes sailing passing the FORD motor plant, which is said to be the largest vehicle factory in Europe. FORD is also  a corporate sponsor of F.C. KOLN , the popular Cologne soccer team. 

The crisp morning air persuaded many guests to enjoy the

approach to Cologne from the lounge inside VIKING BESTLA.

Viking longboats get priority berthing, just to the left of the

bridge, and only a five minute walk to the famous cathedral.

Two more members of our "Gang of Ten" must be introduced. They
are serious shutterbugs from Burnaby -  "C.P." and his wife Lily.

Others have switched to iPad photography. I call them "flat cameras".

This is probably a good time to mention VIKING DAILY, a four page guide to the guests travel day. They are delivered to your cabin the evening before,  and are indispensable. VIKING provides colour guide books with your indoctrination package, but there is always a handy local map available at Reception before you step off on your daily adventure.  The professional Tour Guides we relied on at each stop were EXTREMELY well-informed, but I confess that after four months I have forgetten most of what they told us. Hence the need to keep a full set of handouts and found literature, if you hope to retain a credible narrative of your cruise.

VIKING DAILY - the 4-page folder guests

received on the BESTLA each evening.

This is the appropriate time to discuss the Tour Guides hired by Viking to give us walking tours, or  escort us by bus to landmark venues.  ALL of them are locals, and all are very well informed. Most important, each LOVES their hometown or city. That said, they are still hired guides, and about mid-way during each walk they all begin to play the crowd for their tips. Some use a little harmless raunch, some emphasize economic downtown and their underemployment, a few may stoop to describing their university tuition woes or the children's unemployment.  The rumour was started at Kinderdijk that the guides were unpaid "volunteers" and I continued to hear it for two weeks.

At Cologne we were guided by a lovely man with a wicked sense of humour. Unfortunately we spent far too much time on the river front, and there were so many cruise boats in port that we were constantly bunching up.  We moved just a few blocks in an hour and I got so frustrated that I simply had to poke ahead on my own and just keep his voice on my audio receiver.  When we finally reached the plaza beside the great Dom or Cathedral, we were left to our own devices.  A few of us would have been far better off just ignoring Paddle 24D and striking out with map in hand.  You are never more than 10-15 minutes from the Longship, but there is a wealth of history and culture contained in a small area, if you don't waist time rubbing brass street-art.

One of the unscripted surprises encountered at Cologne (which excited me and perhaps no-one else) was to stumble upon an archeological project that was nearing completion. Beside Cologne's 900 year old City Hall (Koln Rathaus) there are adjacent excavations where a medieval Jewish synagogue was carefully exposed, layer by layer. The synagogue's foundation walls were revealed in the early 1950s when piles of rubble created by WW2 Allied bombing was cleared away, but over a half-century passed before a systematic excavation was funded.  Our guide was almost entirely concerned with pointing out and describing each of the carved stone figures on the Rathaus facade, and we dutifully photographed all of them but ... I promised myself a return later to photograph everything in detail. We did so around 5 PM, when my wife used her iPad (flat camera) to make me a record set.

Cologne has the oldest City Hall - Kolner Rathaus - in Europe (In continuous use for 900 years).

At one corner is a beautiful 700 year old tower, covered with splendid carvings of once-important

religious and civic officials. See if you can spot the carving of a crude peasant performing auto-fellatio.
I didn't notice it either, until our raunchy tour guide drew our attention to it.

While we were outside the City Hall there was civil-wedding ceremony underway, with an attending organ-grinder waiting to serenade the newlyweds. There was something interesting to see in Cologne at every point on the compass, but our schedule was tight. 

Utility lines are supported over the open excavation,

the site of a medieval Jewish Synagogue.   The half-block

ARCHAOLOGISCHE ZONE in central Cologne lay

almost in the shadow of the Great Dom or Cathedral.

Alas, the "dig" was a unique experience that future Viking cruise passengers will not share. We were also lucky in that the Rathaus gothic tower was clean and ready to photograph. Google Street View tells me that a year earlier it was wrapped in scaffolding and plastic sheeting.  After returning to Canada I researched the Cologne Archaeological Zone and learned of plans to build a Jewish Museum on top of the excavation site.  I also found a photograph on Wikipedia (below) taken in January 2015. It shows a contractor had already begun filling in the site to preserve the ancient foundation walls and steps - some of which will be made accessible when the museum is built. 

WIKI Photo - January 2015. This site will become home to a Jewish Museum 

that will showcase Jewish culture and history in the Rhine region. 

"X" marks the vantage point from where I took the previous photograph.

Next:  Overwhelmed by a Cathedral, panicked by a Museum