Day Five - Wednesday - Cologne

 We were up on top of the ship on the morning of Day Five! We were headed to Cologne, Germany - the fourth largest city in Germany!!

It was damp and cool and windy!

We loved seeing the little towns along the riverbank. I personally loved that most of them had a sign telling us the name of the town!!

Our cruise director was Ilko from Hungary currently living in Spain. He was a wonderful cruise director. He was giving us information about the upcoming sights.

We were in the group that chose to do the tour of the Cologne Cathedral. It was so impressive and it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

This cathedral is massive. It is 468 feet wide, 511 feet high, and has 65,000 square feet of floor space and I think 10,000 visitors a day - or maybe more. My tiny photo does not do it justice.

This was our tour guide -- look at her fun hair! We actually had another tour guide on the bus - she is to the right of the colorful hair - bag on her shoulder. I have never had a tour guide walk so fast and not slow down for the people in the rear of the group. We were worried that the people at the back would never find us.

I thought the Cathedral was amazing - It is so tall inside. Mark got a tad bored.

There are so many windows!!

I love these mosaics they have been able to restore.

Ok - this is the shrine of the Three Kings. I had never heard of this before. The shrine is gilded with gemstones, enamels, and sculptures and made of bronze and silver . . .and the shrine is believed to hold the remains of the Three Wise Men. I'm not so sure about that  . . .  but it was interesting! I think the first relics from the three wise men (which do we even know for sure the number??) came to Cologne in 1164.

We went down below to see all of the artifacts they have saved and restored. I found this info on a blog, Stanger Adventures, and am borrowing it.

Downstairs is the Treasure Chamber in the Cologne Cathedral, a historic vaulted chamber in fact, dating to the 13th century, and it is home to the robes and insignias of seven centuries of archbishops. There are also medieval sculptures, and a vast array of precious objects including the remains of a 12th century archbishop who was murdered (Engelbert I), the cross of St. Peter dating from the 4th century, and some early examples of Christian art that are over 1000 years old.

After a couple of hours inside the cathedral, we walked around some - on the way back to the boat. I thought the plants growing on the side of the building were gorgeous!

I know I have a million street views but I adore the way these streets look.

Look how pretty this building is - so colorful!!

Kids and adults were playing in this fountain.

You can see the cathedral from everywhere. If you are interested in reading about the history of this cathedral and how it was one of the few things that remained standing after WW2, check out this article from the World War II museum in New Orleans. It really is fascinating. 

On the walk back to the boat, Mark found some men fishing. One of the men spoke a little English and Mark found out they were catching huge catfish. It was so cute watching them try to communicate!

And then we happened upon the George Elliott (but they spelled it George Eliot). Mark's identical twin brother is George! Pictures of Mark and the boat started a family group text - saying that George had been hiding this, etc. It was quite fun!

One of the most fun things happened on the walk back to the boat that day. I'm going to attempt to post a video or two . . .let's see if I can make it work. Turn on your sound to hear . . .

I wish I had all of our dialogue recorded. First, we were bombarded by birds. Then I said, "look - they are green." Then I said, "I think they are parrots." Well they are rose ringed parakeets which evidently escaped from a zoo or private collection. The first ones were seen in Cologne in 1969 and they now have a huge colony of them near the Rhine River. They are evidently in other cities in this part of the world, too, and have acclimated themselves to the weather. We were laughing like little children. It was such a unique experience. We did have a little bird poop on us . . .but it was worth it to see and hear these fascinating green birds!

Still walking back to the boat -- The cathedral is so large it is truly visible from everywhere.

We met these three ladies (below)back at our hotel in Amsterdam on the first morning and we hung out with them a lot! They were so much fun. They are from Utah and they are LDS. Julie is to the far right - she is a retired educator. She is step-mother to one and step-mother-in-law to the other (Kim and Caristi). They experienced the parakeets with us. This photo is actually out of order, but I wanted to make sure I told y'all about our friends from Utah. I was able to ask Kim some questions about their faith which was so interesting since I'm a Christian from the Bible Belt. Let me just say that they were some of the finest people I've ever met. We loved hanging out with them.

Back on the boat, it was time for sip and sail!!

This is one of the couple's we met on the boat - Deb and Richard. The beauty of only 150 passengers is that you meet most everyone by the end of a week.

That night, we ate dinner with the two of them and with our new friends from Canada - another Deb and Werner. Werner just liked to hear us talk! Good old southern accents - haha!

The servers were phenomenal. They would take our pictures and then they would take selfies!! The one in the back found out that Mark enjoyed ice cream and no matter what he ordered for dessert, she would bring him ice cream, too.

Next post will include the Rhine Gorge and castles!!