COLOGNE, GERMANY

Sunday, 29 May.

Sailed overnight into Cologne. Beautiful, peaceful, scenic landscape along the Rhine. The Rhine (or Rhein in German) is 760 miles long, begins in the south in the Alps and ends at the North Sea.

Our sailing is very smooth; it is difficult to tell that you are moving unless you can see the scenery and the river passing by.

Cologne is the largest city on the Rhine, about 700,000, and is a beautiful old city of 2000 years. It has the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe which has the second tallest spires at 516 feet. Although our guide could not take us inside because of Sunday worship, we toured all around the outside and heard the history of it. Started in 1249, it was worked on for 300 years, then idle for 300 years, after which construction resumed. There was some damage in the war, but nothing major.

The cathedral is the resting place --- presumed --- of the three Magi. Their skeletons supposedly rest in a gold, jewel-encrusted sarcophagus. So, of course, pilgrims come here to honor them, and on Epiphany, 6 January, the sarcophagus is opened so you can view the remains. One of the spires of the cathedral has a 'star' atop, to symbolize the Magi. The boat in front of the cathedral was purchased to be used as the altar when the Pope was here recently; it is a refugee boat. The cathedral is keeping it to remind them of their programs to assist refugees.

Cologne, of course, was the founding place of eau de Cologne, which was actually invented by an Italian perfumist named Farina; he named the first eau de Cologne after himself. The cologne 4711 was the next eau de Cologne and is also manufactured here. Our guide passed around small atomizers of each for us to try.

For some reason, we needed a very long nap after lunch, probably because we were resting up for our beer and dinner tour at 6:30. There were 12 of us on this tour --- many of the younger cruisers were on this one --- and at our first stop we had our introduction to Kolsch (Cologne Beer). It was called Muhlen Kolsch. It is a very light beer, served in 7 ounce glasses, with refills if you wish. The small glass size is to preserve the freshness of the beer. Dinner was cream of asparagus soup (they grow white asparagus in this region), roast beef, pork and turkey, with peas and carrots in a cream sauce, and roasted potatoes. Dessert was a delicious creamy vanilla pudding, made with malt.

We visited 3 more breweries, where I had wine at two of them and water at one. The turquoise water bottle was so beautiful that I kept it, and we were given a Kolsch glass on our return to the ship.

More Rhine cruising tomorrow!