Cologne, Bonn, Dusseldorf, etc.

After being heavily bombed in WWII Cologne was rebuilt as a modern city and you won't find ancient architecture except in small pockets. The city center is all new and it's the most US looking place we've seen since Hanover. There's room to run the trams down the middle of the street and still have 2 lanes of cars on each side. They have retained the pedestrian shopping areas but they also have name brand stores rather than "quaint" shops.

Cologne has about a million people and almost half are not of German descent. They decimated the Jewish population in 1096, 1349, 1424, and again in 1938 but since WWII people from Turkey, southern Europe, and the Mid East have added greatly to the population. It's a good feeling city where local Kolsch beer, falafels, and bowls of rice are offered side by side.

This area along the Rhine was on the edge of the Roman territory from the 1st century BC. The name comes from Colonia - colony in Latin. It was a big city for its day by 300 AD. Twelve hundred years later it was a not-much-bigger walled medieval city. Another 700 years and much of the city was reduced back to rubble. This allowed archeologists to find and trace a lot of the history. Like Barcelona and Paris, there are foundations of the Roman origins on view under the city hall.

Dea Roma - the personification of the city of Rome.

Kaiser Antonius Pius - How pious do you have to be to have the word named after you?

1571. Year 300 boundary in red.
The old city walls became a ring road with surrounding parklands in 1881.

War's End. Only shells of buildings remain. Sunken bridges across the Rhine.
Population is down to 40,000.

1953. Archeology site south of the untouched Dom.

Nicolaus Otto invented the 4-stroke engine in Cologne. This 1876 example was used in the construction of the Dom.

Cologne is inseparable from the Dom. Note in the picture above the Dom is undamaged. A good thing.

Christian churches have existed on this site since about 800. In 1164 the relics (bones) of the Magi (the three wise men) were given to the city and pilgrims (tourists) started to arrive. The current gothic Catholic Cathedral (Dom) was started in 1248 but only the choir (curved east end, or apse) was completed by 1560. A wooden-roofed 1-story church connected the choir with the start of one tower at the west end. Then they ran out of money, patience, and people (plagues and all).

A model at the city museum of the Dom as it looked for almost 300 years -
including a construction crane on the tower that stayed in place the whole time.

By 1842 the Prussians who ruled this area were rich again and the Gothic style was back in vogue so they decided to finish the building. It was finally finished in 1880, 632 years after it was started. Of course there are now over a hundred people on staff who continually build and rebuild the whole thing. Even the official film shows scaffolding.

Oh, the single bell in the 480ft high south tower weighs 24 tons and is the largest swinging bell in the world. You can walk up the 509 steps. Repeat. YOU can walk up the 509 steps, we didn't. These towers were the highest structure in Europe until the Eiffel Tower was built.

North door.

The relics of the Magi are inside this 4ft high box made of solid silver and gold. It's behind glass but must be way too heavy to steal.

The choir.

During the 1800 building project many very intricate mosaics replaced the gravestones as the floor of the choir.

Off to the side is this 3rd century crucifix now mounted in front of a gold sun in a marble frame.

Dusseldorf is even beyond Cologne or Hanover as a city built as an American clone. It's more modern than, say, Fort Wayne. Rectangular box buildings. If it didn't have a subway system and if the signs were English it could be Columbus, OH. There are Portuguese and oriental populations but the city is basically arian. This town is so white bread it made me want to cut the heads off of some parking meters but there are no parking meters.

Bonn, on the other hand is an industrious melting pot. It has lost most of its role as the seat of the West German (FRG) government but there's plenty going on. Again, the architecture is all modern so we don't have a lot of pictures.

We spent a few hours in the Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (museum of the FRG) which goes into excruciating detail about the time from 1945 until 1990. No pictures allowed in there either.

Aachen (not, we think, pronounced as in Oh my achin feet) has yet another Dom. This one with more history than any we've seen before. The central octagonal portion was Charlemagne's court chapel in 805 (not eighteen oh five; eight oh five). They crowned Holy Roman Emperors here until 1531. Many of their bones are here but only Charlemagne's are on display - in a gold shrine of course. We'll give that a bit more veracity than the relics of the Magi, thank you.