Cologne

This weekend was intended for Germany's fourth largest city, Cologne, or Koln in the native tongue. I am pretty much just thumbing through my Lonely Planet: Germany guidebook now and seeing what cities I can drive to that have anything of interest to me. The book said Cologne had a zoo and the largest Cathedral in Germany so I was hooked. I drove up early morning time this weekend to get to the zoo right as it opened. Fortunately it was a cool/breezy day so the animals were mostly out and about before the crowds got there. After the zoo I strolled up the Rhine river to the heart of the city where the Kolner Dom was, the largest in Germany. It took some 400 years to build and was finished in 1880. Thankfully it survived the wars. After walking around it to appreciate the size, I walked 509 steps in a claustrophobic persons nightmare of a spiral staircase to the top of the south tower where I got an excellent view of the city. I finished out the day walking around the city enjoying the food that was a Cologne specialty.





Cologne Germany, unfortunately I could only get this picture with everything in it from my car as I was leaving for the day



Kolner Zoo had one of the largest elephant exhibits I had ever seen


Up close and personal


Grosse (Big) St. Martin, another fantastic looking church


509 steps and this was the view...


The World's largest working Bell


One of the doorways, the smallest details to all the faces is probably why it took so long to build...


Looking straight up at the twin spires


The Kolner Dom, Look closely at the left (south) tower and you can see the spiral staircase heading to the top


A view of the Kolner Dom from the other side of the Rhine. The largest cathedral in Germany


The three Kings who followed the Star to Bethlehem the night Jesus was born are said to rest here, unfortunately I couldn't get a good picture without bars in it :(


Pretty Big, and this isn't even all of it


A taste of home

Heidelberg

One of the oldest college towns in Germany, Heidelberg sits along the Neckar river (a branch of the Rhine) and is home of one of the most important Renaissance structures, the Heidelberg Castle. I went here two weekends ago to pickup a friend from a work related event and we drove downtown just to see it. However I wasn't satisfied so I planned on going back this past weekend to see all I could of Heidelberg.

I started out the day by making the hike up the Konigstuhl hill to the Schloss (German word for castle). The view of the city and river were spectacular. The the castle was mostly in ruins after the French burned it in 1689 but it still looked awesome. Some of these pictures you might have to click on to enlarge them.



Heidelberg Castle atop the hill over the city





A closeup, as close as I could anyways


The 'Old Bridge' that connected the two parts of the town over the Neckar River


A view from the castle overlooking the Alstadt (downtown)

With a keg this big, I'm sure the parties never stopped



The face of the castle


A view from below the castle in the town square

Summer in the Cities

I've been in Germany for a year now. And I'm ashamed to say I haven't even been to Berlin. That'll change this summer though so be prepared for a weekly post of the cities I go to. This should be fun......