Exploring Cologne, Germany

While planning this vacation, a lot of thought and research went into figuring out just where to visit. Once I decided that we’d spend some days in Austria after being in Amsterdam, I knew that I wanted to see Germany in between the two. After doing some reading and Googling, I decided that we’d visit the city of Cologne.

After a couple of hours on the train, we stepped out in Cologne and immediately saw what the city is most known for – the massive gothic Roman Catholic cathedral known as Kölner Dom.

The church is the most visited landmark in all of Europe, with an estimated 20,000 people visiting it daily. It was certainly a site to see, especially if you’re into churches and their architecture.

Afterwards, Adam and I were reading online about the history of the church, and found it crazy to see pictures from during World War II when the city of Cologne was mostly flattened, yet the church still stood tall. American troops reportedly used the cathedral as a rifle range during the war.

(source)

Next, we checked out the Hohenzollern Bridge – a site famous for its “love padlocks.” Couples from all over the world have come to the bridge to lock engraved padlocks onto the bridge, then throw the keys into the Rhine River. It’s meant to symbolize their everlasting love for one another. I thought the concept was so neat!

Unfortunately we didn’t bring a padlock of our own, but I kept noticing my name on so many of them! I guess that ‘Nicole’ is a pretty popular name worldwide.

It was a gorgeous day in Cologne, so we walked around town a lot after seeing the bridge. We made our way to where the cable cars take off from, and rested our feet while riding in the sky checking out the city from high up.

We were surprised that most of the people we ran into in Cologne did not speak English. I felt like a bit of a jerk not knowing much German while visiting their country, and I got the impression that they were a bit embarrassed that they didn’t know much English. Adam knows a bit of German but hasn’t studied it in awhile, so he isn’t exactly fluent. When all else fails, I find it best to just smile and point to things!

Later in the day when we ventured around the downtown area looking for a bite to eat, we found that menus weren’t translated into English. This presented a bit of a challenge for myself as a vegetarian in Germany – the land of bratwurst and every other kind of hot dog looking meat out there. When you tell people that you want no meat, they look at you like you’re nuts! I wound up playing it safe with a broccoli pizza, which was very good.

Though Cologne isn’t necessarily a city I’d stay in for an extended period of time, being there for a day and night was a nice stop on our way down to Austria. Random fact: Cologne has the most pubs per capita in all of Germany. A plethora of authentic pubs may be reason enough to go check it out there!