Thursday 7th September
The grey skies have continued, a small slither of sunlight filters through the cracks in our curtains from the east as dawn banishes the night darkness waking us up. Imperceptibly we have glided down the Rhine river overnight winding our way upstream around the many bends and out of the Netherlands and into Germany. Breakfast is first on the agenda, the brochure says sumptuous and that it is. With just about any food type you could desire, even an omelette chef making fresh omelettes to order while you wait. We continue our silent gliding, the ships engines barely perceptible, one feature of the room which is great is the so called “French balcony” this allows fresh to flow in through the open sliding door. Düsseldorf is the first town we pass through an old River port town, I have visited here in my past working life, as this town is the the location of huge medical products fairs held every year. This time though we are sailing through on our way to Cologne, arrival around 3.00pm where we will take an afternoon tour. The temperature remains cool around 15c as I write this.
We glide into Cologne, the mammoth outline of the enormous cathedral dark against a grey sky. From the top deck we watch the docking procedure as we tie up parallel to the high river walls, then access the river pathway directly by an access ramp to the ship.
We have decided on a walking tour of Cologne that takes in the Cathedral and then moves on to the nearby modern art museum, named Ludwig’s museum after Peter Ludwig a chocolate billionaire endowed 350 works of art to the then the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in 1976. The endowment then valued at $45m included works from Pop Art, Abstract and Surrealism, the city built a new museum to house the works that now has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It also features many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.
This my third visit to the cathedral, it is still an enormous edifice that took hundreds of years to complete at one point in history the building works stopped for three hundred years and then began again. Now undergoing restoration work, the city is trying out different techniques to preserve and restore the blackened and crumbling stone for future generations. Consequently scaffolding is everywhere, reminding us of the famous Barcelona cathedral, the La Sagrada Familia that was also under scaffolding when we were there. Come to think if it even the Capitol building in Washington DC was covered in scaffolding when we were there, at least Big Ben wasn’t this time!
Inside though all is pretty much without change probably for centuries, the gigantic vaulted ceilings must have astounded anyone who came to see the building. Congruent with the internal scale, enormous stained glass windows bring in light adding to the eerie ambience of the main chamber. We wander around looking at the ancient religious relics and tombs of past bishops and other leaders. This is a Catholic Church so would have links to Rome, the town originally a Roman settlement Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, a name that was bound to be shortened, first to Cologne, then to Kuln as the locals now call it.
The name Cologne of course became synonymous with perfume, when under Napoleon, Cologne was part of the French empire. The famous 4711 brand created in the early 18th century by Johann Maria Farina (1685–1766), an Italian living in Cologne created a fragrance. He named it Eau de Cologne (“water from Cologne”) after his new home. Apparently these where stinky times.
We have listened to our tour guide as we move around Cologne and now we follow him to the Ludwig museum. After he leads the tour around the gallery he announces that he will leave us and that we can make our way at or own leisure back to the ship, a few of the group think he is joking but after we descend the architectural staircase to the ground floor he disappears. Although the German modern art he pointed out to us wasn’t to our taste, he was obviously a well versed student of art as his knowledge of these paintings and their apparent meaning was deep. The one painting I enjoyed the most was a Picasso portrait of an actor dressed for the part of a jester in harlequin outfit and partial makeup, very striking.
Our way back to the ship is through the cobbled streets of Cologne, that wind around parallel to the the Rhine.
Take any narrow alley to our left and you are back on the river. All around the memories flood back of our last visit here, much later in the year and colder. Comparing the pictures from 1994 and Cologne now is interesting indeed.
Back on the ship, we have to prepare for the captains gala dinner tonight, first the presentation of the officers and department heads then the dinner, one of the two formal dinners of the cruise. We make it just in time for the presentation, dressed in our finest evening outfits brought along all this way just for the cruise. Champagne and canapés greet us, the personnel are introduced by the captain dressed in a white dinner jacket and black tie, a humorous fellow, with his German accented English and vocal tone one can’t help thinking Arnold Schwarzenegger, or if your Australian Mathias Cormann, as portrayed by our countries comedians.
The presentation over, we make our way to dinner a five course affair, prawn cocktail, mushroom soup, chicken vol-au-vent, choice of sea bass, or veal chop, dessert of thick chocolate mouse, presented as a cube with mango sorbet on top and a twirl of hard mint chocolate. German wines to match a fruity Sauvignon Blanc and a Cabernet Merlot. Mike and Pauline, fellow travellers we met the previous night join us again for dinner.
There is to be entertainment in the lounge after dinner but dinner doesn’t end until 10.00pm so we decide give that a miss. An early start is needed tomorrow as we pass through one of the most scenic parts of the Rhine from around 8.30am, littered with castles, picturesque villages and vineyards.