We reached Cologne on the 20th of June early evening. It was a lot warmer than we had expected by the time we reached the Cologne Cathedral square. The second tallest twin-spires did impress us despite the fact that the Cathedral wasn't free of scaffolding.
We soon found ourselves in a Chinese restaurant overlooking the street where a demonstration against Neo Nazi ideologies was going on.
Because of the tourist office being closed and the impossibility of getting hold of a city map we made our way to the Hotel, which was not in the city centre, by asking several people on the way, which wasn't too easy, I must confess. Once we managed to get accommodated everything seemed to fall into place. We located it on a map which was given to us at the reception and looked throgh to see what we would be exploring the following day.
From Perlengraben we made it to St. Georg's Church just a few metres away. It is one of the twelve Romanesque Churches in Cologne and although its foundation is unknown, it was consecrated at the end of the 11th century. Its nave is siad to be unique in Cologne because of having the arcade supported on columns rather than piers.
We continued heading towards the centre close to the river Rhein in attempt to get the Cologne atmosphere. Because of the unexpected heat wave there were quite a few people out in the streets and squares just sitting around and relaxing.
Before crossing over a narrow lane so as to get a better perspective of the Great St. Martin's Church we moved onto a small square where an interesting fountain caught our attention. Designed by Willi Klein after the well known singer and song-writer Willi Osterman's death, its carved stone statues depict some of the characters used by Osterman in his songs, which are said to have become favourite over the Carnival period.
(To be continued)
