Cologne Cathedral - History underfoot and overhead.

Blog No. 5

Ronald J. Jack

History underfoot.  History overhead.  History in the making.  That was our afternoon at the magnificent Cologne Cathedral (Dom) and the adjacent Romano-Germanic Museum.  The Dom was cruise highlight No. 2, after the Van Gogh Museum.   Today the Domplatte, a 7000 square meter pedestrian zone paved with massive granite plates, is "Ground Zero" for tourism, cultural events and political protest. We got to taste it all.

A National Memorial Service for victims of the March 2015 Germanwings Air Disaster is going to be celebrated, and televised, at the Cologne Cathedral on April 17th.  I hope to catch some of it.

The Domplatte before noon. For tickets (3 Euros) to climb the Cathedral spire,

you must endure the long lineup.  Entrance to the building is FREE. We paid

for tickets, but abandoned our climb because the steps were far too crowded.

I have collected many vintage images of the Cologne Dom, for interest and comparison sake.  Photo-historians must often explain the significance of an image, unless the event itself was symbolic and blunt.  British tanks parked in front of the Cathedral after WW1 was blunt,  as were American G.I.s posing atop a knocked-out Panzer in 1945. These are images with a voice of their own.  

During the war, the Allied heavy bombers hit Cologne so often that the city had to be evacuated - from a base population of 800,000 residents down to 20,000. There are hundreds of unexploded bombs just below the surface, and recently one of the major bridges was closed to traffic while specialists cleared a bomb discovered beneath the river bank.  Unfortunately modern Germans tend to hide most aspects of WW2, and there is very little evidence to be found in the city.  

When we began our tour of the inside of the cathedral, the Domplatte was crowded with tourists. When we emerged they had been replaced by a half-dozen police vehicles and perhaps 300 vocal Kurdish protestors.  What was the issue?   "STOP  I.S.I.S."  Ostensibly they were protesting ISIS penetration into traditional Kurd territories, but they were equally keen to promote Kurdish political identity and its support base in Germany.  We spent about ten minutes among the protesters and then moved on to the final treasure of our day, the Roman-Germanic Museum. 

INSIDE THE GREAT DOM

I suppose the engineers knew what they were doing, but it was startling non-the-less to walk through two gaping portals cut through the foundation walls of Cologne Cathedral.  I know that a million plus visitors a year must be accommodated,  but those are really generous holes.

One of the many surprises of our cruise was the utility of my wife's Apple iPad.   I wasn't as handy with my digital camera, a CANON EOS, as she was with her iPad - although these interiors of the church are mine. A few times, after Cologne, I chose to leave my camera on the boat.  On my next cruise I will definitely be carrying an iPad "flat camera", which can actually use GPS to label, sort and archive your images as you take them.  Talk about a work saver!

I must admit to feeling a bit overwhelmed by my first encounter with a medieval cathedral.  It's not that I had mistrust for those who constructed the Koln Cathedral 900 years ago, but I couldn't help remembering its great age and the fact that it had been concussed by the detonations of thousands of bombs the Allies dropped on the city during World War 2.  Several times I caught myself pushing my back into a friendly pillar or a wall, as if that would save me should he ceiling come down. Well,  that's the sort of game the mind will sometimes put you through.

As well, I did feel guilty invading a holy place of worship, as if a Canadian passport gave me the right to poke my nose anywhere I pleased.  It doesn't.  We have to be tactful. There were some devout people amongst the tourist throng, trying to have a few moments to enjoy the great cathedral on a spiritual level.  It would be a perfect day if we all managed to satisfy our need for enlightenment, without stepping on each others feet.

THE ROMANO-GERMANIC  MUSEUM

After pushing past the phalanx of Kurdish flag bearers we gained access to the Romisch-Germanisches Museum.  A kindly security guard pointed out that closing was less than an hour away. Since the tickets were expensive wouldn't we prefer to return another day?  I suggested, "How about giving some discount?" and he approached the female ticket seller on our behalf.  "Nein!" was her answer. 

At my very first attempt to record our visit, I was warned "No Fotos" by a security guard. I said to my wife, "They took my money, we're taking pictures." It was time for tactics, not tact, and her iPad was a Godsend. I don't know why the guards did not interfere with her, (I was lookout) but we moved from gallery to gallery, one display case after another, and she photographed everything I was interested in. I could study and enjoy the exhibits upon return to Canada. In 50 minutes of purchased Museum time she recorded virtually everything I thought I wanted to have.  

This is a rather famous exhibit - an original Roman floor with a Swastika motif.  The Museum was built over  an archaeological site which preserves ancient Roman construction as found.  The floor is in situ.
There are many pieces of monumental sculpture and recreations of Roman life on the Rhine, but I was keenest on something more perishable - glass work. 

This is one of the 170 photographs she took for me, using her iPad Air, and I furtively took another dozen.  At home I have just one reference book on ancient glass, with perhaps thirty examples of Roman Glass. It was not the type of artifact I ever expected to encounter. So of course I was enthralled when confronted with such a wealth of ancient creativity - thousands of quality pieces in the Cologne museum, of every conceivable shape and purpose. Amazing.

We had enjoyed an amazingly full day.

NEXT: Koblenz and Marksburg Castle