Germany - Day 2
30 October 2008 14:52![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kmusserMy first full day in Germany I am much refreshed and ready to go exploring. I go get back on the train (which is late) and head south. Passing through the mostly industrial landscape it's not very different from much of the northeast or midwest parts of the U.S. - overall Germany strikes me as much more similar to the U.S. than say, England. I think because it feels like a newish country - almost all the construction in this area is post-WWII, the medieval landscape has been erased with just the occasional building surviving - anything older than 100 years is given the "historic landmark" treatment much like it is in the U.S. Of course one of those buildings is the Cologne Cathedral. This trip is weird in how little preparation I've done for it, I don't have any guidebooks, or a definite plan of what to see - but I figure I can't go wrong by getting off at Köln and looking for the big frickin' cathedral.
This plan works amazing well. The cathedral is right in front of the train station and it is indeed frickin' huge. Mind-numbingly large really – and then you might notice how intricately detailed every statue, spire, doorway, window, etc is decorated – and yeah, I can see why it took 600 years to finish building it. Sadly the pictures I took inside didn’t turn out, there are some better ones on the Wikipedia article. The experience was also marred a bit by the jack hammers inside, the maintenance work is apparently never-ending and there was scaffolding cover some sections. Anyway, after being awed by the cathedral I just wandered around town for a bit, also in the pictures are some of the town hall – one of the only old buildings other than the cathedral to survive the bombing, the riverfront, and the church of Groß St. Martin, which was destroyed in the bombing but has been almost entirely rebuilt (picture of it from 1946).
I get back on a train and continue south along the Rhine. The countryside gradually gets hillier and less industrial. The appearance of the occasional castle in the distance and the hill slopes covered in vineyards signal my arrival in the targeted Moselle wine region. I stop in Koblenz which is at the junction of the Rhine and the Moselle rivers. The train station is not in downtown, but there are idiot-proof signs directing me to the bus that’ll take me in to where the tourist sites are – primarily the monument that is right at the junction of the rivers called Deutsches Eck. I wandered about – this town retains a bit more of the medieval feel than places in the Ruhr region. I was hoping to find a wine store, but was disappointed (I would stock up later on German wines from a grocery in Essen – gotta love a place where wine is the cheapest thing to drink). I took a bunch of pictures of the Ehrenbreitstein which is the massive fortress on the other side of the river but didn’t travel there as my feet were already beginning to hurt.
Due to a misreading of the bus schedule I end up getting back later than intended, but I still get back to Essen long before the rest of the GCOM crew arrive. Eventually they do – there are 7 of us in all – and sleeping arrangements are made. We also develop our plan of attack for tomorrow when the Spiel opens.
This plan works amazing well. The cathedral is right in front of the train station and it is indeed frickin' huge. Mind-numbingly large really – and then you might notice how intricately detailed every statue, spire, doorway, window, etc is decorated – and yeah, I can see why it took 600 years to finish building it. Sadly the pictures I took inside didn’t turn out, there are some better ones on the Wikipedia article. The experience was also marred a bit by the jack hammers inside, the maintenance work is apparently never-ending and there was scaffolding cover some sections. Anyway, after being awed by the cathedral I just wandered around town for a bit, also in the pictures are some of the town hall – one of the only old buildings other than the cathedral to survive the bombing, the riverfront, and the church of Groß St. Martin, which was destroyed in the bombing but has been almost entirely rebuilt (picture of it from 1946).
I get back on a train and continue south along the Rhine. The countryside gradually gets hillier and less industrial. The appearance of the occasional castle in the distance and the hill slopes covered in vineyards signal my arrival in the targeted Moselle wine region. I stop in Koblenz which is at the junction of the Rhine and the Moselle rivers. The train station is not in downtown, but there are idiot-proof signs directing me to the bus that’ll take me in to where the tourist sites are – primarily the monument that is right at the junction of the rivers called Deutsches Eck. I wandered about – this town retains a bit more of the medieval feel than places in the Ruhr region. I was hoping to find a wine store, but was disappointed (I would stock up later on German wines from a grocery in Essen – gotta love a place where wine is the cheapest thing to drink). I took a bunch of pictures of the Ehrenbreitstein which is the massive fortress on the other side of the river but didn’t travel there as my feet were already beginning to hurt.
Due to a misreading of the bus schedule I end up getting back later than intended, but I still get back to Essen long before the rest of the GCOM crew arrive. Eventually they do – there are 7 of us in all – and sleeping arrangements are made. We also develop our plan of attack for tomorrow when the Spiel opens.