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