Koln/Cologne other sites

For the most part, I think I'll just show pics with captions. All these occured after our climbing the steeple of the cathedral (did I mention it was 397 steps both going up and coming back down?). So we were tired and hungry. They asked where I wanted to eat and immediately started suggesting pizza places, etc. Aain, I said I would prefer a true German meal. So we ended up in the restaurant shown below--with an Italian waiter who spoke German with an Italian accent. It was lunch hour and the place was crowded. But he gave good professional service, albeit a bit brusquely.

A view of the restaurant from the table where we sat. I don't recall the name of the restaurant, but it is just off the Cathedral square. That is our waiter with his back to the camera.

Marina had already ordered an entree from the children's menu. And Beth wanted the same. Waiter said she could not do that. Meanwhile, Stephanie wanted spaghetti from regular menu. So Beth asked if Stephanie could order the item from children's menu and she the spaghetti and then they could trade. Waiter said no to that also. Beth was really upset and vowed to us that she would write to the minister of something-or-other and complain. But I had another plan. Beth ordered the spaghetti and Stephanie the children's item. (They had already ordered a huge meal--very German--for me.) When the waiter brought the items, I simply asked him to take this pic of us. Then he returned my camera and turned to walk away and I picked up their plates and switched them--per their original plan. No big deal. But every time I look at this pic, I remember how upset Beth got and I chuckle to myself.

I've introduced the people before, but here I go again: L to R, Stephanie, Marina, me, Beth.

After lunch, the young ladies went shopping. There is a huge outdoor mall adjacent to the Cathedral. Meanwhile, Beth and I had a map of old and/or significant sites near the cathedral. And we set out to find some of these.

Below, is St. Maria Himmelfahrt church. Judging from the Mercedez-Benzes out front, the guards watching the cars, and the sound of the language of the mass being conducted, we concluded it was an Italian mass in progress as we stepped in and I tried to take a pic as inconspicuously as possible.



Next is St. Ursulla church. We thought we were heading to a different church. But I misread the map and we ended up here at St. Ursulla.

Since I had misread the map and we had ended up at St. Ursulla, Beth was not confident in my map-reading skills and struggled valiantly to regain control of where we should go. But she discovered that Franciscos are not the only stubborn gene-pool in the world.

As we followed the map we kept feeling uncertain. We were looking for Sankt Andreas church, which the map indicated was only a couple blocks from the cathedral. But as we looked down the block where it should have been we couldn't see anything. But I followed the map, and we almost passed a little courtyard leading behind the storefronts. And there was the church!

Above and below, Sankt Andreas church. For this video, in case you have not had your volume on for the previous videos, you might want to listen to my narrative on this one (or not).

One would think that after my success in finding the Sankt Andreas church, Beth would have shown more confidence in my directional skills. But that minor error that ended up at St. Ursulla instead of wherever we thought we were going might have continued to haunt her. Or maybe she simply has some of the same stubbornness as other members of her family. In any case, we set out looking for the Roman ruins. All we knew was that it was constructed in the year that Koln became a Roman colonial city, i.e., A.D.50! She kept thinking we were looking for a building--no matter how many times I told her it was not a building. But I too was uncertain what we were looking for. Plus, the search took us several blocks away from the other points of interest. The farther away from the cathedral that we walk, the more she insisted we had missed it. I kept saying, "Just a little farther."

Finally, there it was! No mistaking it. This round tower was one of the corners for the Roman garrison. An inscription on a plaque explained that the main reason the structure survived a period of demolition was that for a long time it served as a latrine for an adjacent convent.

One more day on the road and then I'm home!

ttfn