Day 14 (15th July): Colonge in Honeymoon

This is the second-to-last port we will tour, as well as the last German city. Colonge is big, but the part worth seeing is all within walking distance - centered around the huge cathedral. There are museums for everything - roman ruins, modern art, chocolate, perfume, gymnastics, or whatever you can think of. But it does not have a museum of sex, so New York still has it beat.

La Professeure's cold came back today and was not feeling well at all, so after the morning's walking tour, we went to a drug store to get her some drug, starbucks to get a warm drink, and we got back to the boat for lunch and, she stayed on the ship to rest. I left and explored. I went to the observation deck on the Koln Triangle (they call it the panorama), and it was very nice, much nicer than the Empire State building or even Top of the Rock, since it was pretty much the tallest building around, you can get an unobstructed view of the whole city. The platform is circular, and basically takes up the entire top floor of the building, and there are no protruding structure beneath you that you can see. I was also surprised at how few people were there. I spent time up there taking pictures and also resting (it was a good 20 minutes walk from the boat).

After that I went across the cathedral bridge, which was a nice walk and I could see the padocks that lovers put on it. Interestingly, I noticed the vast majority of them date from 2012 onwards, with occasional ones from 1985 or so, so I wonder if people go through these locks periodically and remove them.

After the bridge I walked around the opera house, which is a modern building, that looks like a modern temporary arena they set up at a sports stadium. Apparently it's built from containers as a temporary place for the opera while the 'real' opera house is being renovated, but it's been in use for 13 years, and counting.

At that point I should have gone back into the church because the first time I was there in the morning, there was a service going on and we couldn't walk around. But alas, I had forgotten. So, instead, I walked up the Rhine to get to the chocolate factory (it's on the way back to the ship) run by the Lindt company. I am surprised they covered everything from coffee bean production, history, politics, trade, to the culture of chocolate in different cutures. They even have a little habitat set to rain forrest condition and grow coffee beans in there. But the highlight of the museum is of course the coffee making machines. It is like watching an episode of "How It's Made" on chocolates.

After the museum it was time to head back to the ship. While on the way across the Severins bridge, I took a photo of Lukas Podolski's apartment. And, I also took a picture of our ship. As it happened, our cruise company also has another ship docked at Colonge, but that ship uses a different dock, right next to the center of town. In fact, you could take a picture of the big ship, and it would sit under the cathedral, looking like an advertisement for the cruise ship company. And then I turned around and see our ship docked under a dinky old warehouse. That tells you that the company's priority lies in the big luxurious cruise ships rather than the small versatile and fast ones like ours. It's a shame, really.

After dinner, there was a classical trio (piano, clarinet, and cello) that came on board and played. They did the standard entertaining fare - Ode to Joy, Gounod's Ave Maria, Brahm's Hungarina Dances, Offenbach's Bacarolle and can-can, etc. So it was a fun evening, and the musicians are good too. I think you can play old and tired repertoire, but in the hands of great musicians, it will still sound fresh and energetic. Our guests liked it alot, gave it three ovations and got three encores, so that was nice.

All in all, it's been a nice trip, and we are already thinking about taking another river cruise. And we still have a day of this one to go!