Where's Bertie? He's still in the car park on the west side of Köln.
Weather: Overcast but dry and warm.
Marathon day was, in most respects, a good day to go into the city. Road closures meant there wasn't traffic on most roads, we were able to stop and cheer on passing runners at various points, and the nearer to the centre we got, the bigger the crowds of spectators and thus the better the atmosphere. The only downside was that we had to backtrack a few times to find a different route when we found our way blocked by runners and barricades.
A good point to spectate, but we needed to cross this road and, aside from the barriers, the runners were coming too thick and fast. Not a problem as it turned out: down into a u-bahn station, under the road, and back up the other side.
No way around the obstruction at this point, so a temporary pedestrian bridge had been built over the road (hence the vantage point for this snap)
Crowds lining the route by the cathedral, which must have been by the finish line.
The diversions we took to avoid the uncrossable roads meant that we ended up at the cathedral as our first port of call, whereas I had intended it to be our last, as it's not open to non-worshipping visitors until 1pm on a Sunday. Never mind, we made do with 'wowwing' at the exterior of the building:
From the front - picture bent by the panoramic function on my phone's camera.
From the side
Alas, it turned out that we hit the only impressive landmark first. Everything else was rather disappointing.
Every reference to the old town is accompanied by a variant on this photo. That's because there's nothing else comparably photoworthy.
Along the river, through a few cobbled streets of the Alltstadt, into the Alltmarkt and the Neumarkt, via a few statues and monuments, but nothing particularly remarkable. The real let down was the Allt Rathaus. With such a glowing write-up of its history on the Tourist Info website, I had high hopes. This is what we found:
Surrounded by hoardings, but even then it's a long way down our list* of the most impressive rathauses we've seen in Germany.
Fountain of the Day
Could we have made more of our visit into the city? Almost certainly. In fact, I reckon we could happily spend a couple of days visiting some of the many museums, but once again the request to wear FFP2 masks throughout such visits has put us off. I thought yesterday that a walking tour would perhaps be worthwhile, but I found that they only happen in English on Fridays and Saturdays, and we'd already missed this week's**.
The other element of the day that was lacking was food, but that was our own fault. I eyed up a number of bakeries on the way into the city for coffee and elevenses, but by the time we wanted to stop for refreshment, there wasn't one to be found, and I was so set on bakery goods that I didn't want a restaurant. By the time we were heading back past the bakeries, it was past lunchtime, so elevenses was missed. We came back to Bertie toting another take-away by way of a late lunch:
Big portions. City prices. Saving on washing up by eating out of the containers.
We also came back with four freebie cans of Starbucks coffee, having twice passed the stall (related to the marathon) where they were handing them out to every passerby who would take some.
Whilst the sights didn't wow us today, we managed to walk 13km about the place and spent far longer in Köln than we've managed in some other major cities, so it wasn't a write-off of a day - especially when you take the marathon-spectating into account.
(*Okay, we don't have such a list, but I know we've seen a lot of Rathausen that have had us exclaim as to their prettiness, stonework or architectural merit. This didn't elicit any positive exclamations.
**Thinking about it, we heard some English-speaking tour guides today, although perhaps they were arranged by cruise/holiday providers and thus not available to individual members of the public - or maybe I should have looked further than the Tourist Info website.)
Weather: Overcast but dry and warm.
Marathon day was, in most respects, a good day to go into the city. Road closures meant there wasn't traffic on most roads, we were able to stop and cheer on passing runners at various points, and the nearer to the centre we got, the bigger the crowds of spectators and thus the better the atmosphere. The only downside was that we had to backtrack a few times to find a different route when we found our way blocked by runners and barricades.
The diversions we took to avoid the uncrossable roads meant that we ended up at the cathedral as our first port of call, whereas I had intended it to be our last, as it's not open to non-worshipping visitors until 1pm on a Sunday. Never mind, we made do with 'wowwing' at the exterior of the building:
Alas, it turned out that we hit the only impressive landmark first. Everything else was rather disappointing.
Along the river, through a few cobbled streets of the Alltstadt, into the Alltmarkt and the Neumarkt, via a few statues and monuments, but nothing particularly remarkable. The real let down was the Allt Rathaus. With such a glowing write-up of its history on the Tourist Info website, I had high hopes. This is what we found:
Could we have made more of our visit into the city? Almost certainly. In fact, I reckon we could happily spend a couple of days visiting some of the many museums, but once again the request to wear FFP2 masks throughout such visits has put us off. I thought yesterday that a walking tour would perhaps be worthwhile, but I found that they only happen in English on Fridays and Saturdays, and we'd already missed this week's**.
The other element of the day that was lacking was food, but that was our own fault. I eyed up a number of bakeries on the way into the city for coffee and elevenses, but by the time we wanted to stop for refreshment, there wasn't one to be found, and I was so set on bakery goods that I didn't want a restaurant. By the time we were heading back past the bakeries, it was past lunchtime, so elevenses was missed. We came back to Bertie toting another take-away by way of a late lunch:
Whilst the sights didn't wow us today, we managed to walk 13km about the place and spent far longer in Köln than we've managed in some other major cities, so it wasn't a write-off of a day - especially when you take the marathon-spectating into account.
(*Okay, we don't have such a list, but I know we've seen a lot of Rathausen that have had us exclaim as to their prettiness, stonework or architectural merit. This didn't elicit any positive exclamations.
**Thinking about it, we heard some English-speaking tour guides today, although perhaps they were arranged by cruise/holiday providers and thus not available to individual members of the public - or maybe I should have looked further than the Tourist Info website.)
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