Erfurt: Strolling through history, rewarded with cocktails

Hi there!

Well, spring is truly here in Germany, and I've finally figured out that "not turning on lights during the day, ever ever" thing.  It's because of bugs.  I'm pretty sure there is not a single fucking building in Kassel, corporate or private, that has a window screen.  (AC is in rather short supply as well.)  If you open a window while the light is on, it's like insect Mecca.  Leave the lights off, and maybe only a handful of exoskeletal winged darlings will choose to pay you a visit over the course of the afternoon.

SO -- enjoying this drizzly Sunday afternoon in proper German fashion.  Lights off, windows open.  And occasionally getting up to squash a fruit fly or gently coax a confused bee back where she belongs.

It's Spring Break here in Germany, and I've just had what is doubtlessly the easiest week I hope to ever have (without planning for it, that is).  A handful of classes were cancelled de-facto due to the break, and then scores of individual cancellations began pouring in over text and email.  Do you want to know how many classes I ended up teaching this week?  Three.  Three.  It's been deliciously relaxing. I got a lot of housework done, made some extended gym visits, ran errands (Finanzamt, new jeans (!), random stuff for apt.), cooked some good food, and even got to read on my balcony in some late afternoon sunshine.  Pretty much NONE of these things can ever happen during a normal workday, and it was honestly very lovely to have all this downtime immediately following a very hectic trip.  But for every yang there is a yin, and my April invoice is going to be very, very grim.  There will very likely not be any traveling in May.

The situation being what it is, I might have done things differently had I known the extent to which I would not be working (or billing) this month.  But -- I did not know, so I blissfully and ignorantly tripped off last week on a whirlwind 6-day tour of beautiful Thuringia.  Erfurt, Eisenach, Buchenwald, and Weimar.  It was an amazing few days, with a lot packed in and even one or two moments of relaxing!

When I'd first decided I wanted to take a few days and do a proper trip, of course my first thought was to see Berlin.  However, I'd also been talking to a friend, Lisa, and she and I wanted to do something together.  Lisa's been to Berlin and it's not her favorite city (kind of like me and Florence I guess), so instead we thought to try a few places a little less well-known.  I'd taken two extra days off work, which meant I would have two days on my own before Lisa joined me in Erfurt on Friday.

Day One:  Erfurt

One of the big bonuses to not going to Berlin was the travel cost and time saved.  Even with my discount BahnCard, it would have been 111 euros for a round-trip train ticket from Kassel to Berlin!!  I looked into buses, and while much cheaper it was going to be something like a six-hour ride.  Ugh.  (Not un-doable, but also hardly ideal.)  However, my train ticket to cute little Erfurt was the very reasonable price of 14.95 euro, and I was there in an hour and a half.

It was pretty easy to find Opera Hostel from the train station.  Unfortunately there happened to be some "minor" road work going on.

Oh well.

It was too early to check in, so I stashed Sisyphus, grabbed a hostel map, and headed out.

To tell the truth, I'd done embarrassingly little research on any of the cities I'd be visiting on this trip.  I hadn't even decided yet whether to hit Eisenach or Gotha on tomorrow's day trip.  As I was getting my day pack together, the hostel guy asked me what I was looking forward to seeing in Erfurt.  I had to give a big goofy grin as I shrugged and said "Ah, you know.  Museums and churches.  And bratwurst."  Nothing but the golden truth.  All the same -- both Rick Steves and Lonely Planet had seen fit to accompany me on this adventure, and I was confident they wouldn't let me astray.

And hey, guess what?  Erfurt has a giant, beautiful cathedral!

Cathedral, St. Marien's, on the left, and St. Severus on the right

Before we go further, I should mention that the region of Thurgingia boasts one particularly famous historical figure, none other than Martin Luther.  The most famous Luther-town is almost certainly Wittenberg (not in Thuringia), but Erfurt is where Luther took his priestly vows (at St. Marien's, in fact), and across town is the Augustinian monastery where he became a monk.  (The town I would visit the next day, Eisenach, is home to Wartburg Castle, where Luther translated the New Testament from Latin into German for the first time.)

Erfurt really, really loves Martin Luther.

After St. Marien's and St. Severus (why have one church on a hilltop when you have have two right next to each other?), I wandered semi-aimlessly across town, stopping in a few more churches and just exploring this extremely picturesque town.

I ended up at the Anger Museum.  This is not a cool as it sounds.  Anger in German just means "meadow".  It's a museum housing art and historical artifacts from the region, cost six euro, and was honestly extremely dry.  The most interesting exhibit there was a temporary installation on the top floor, a collection of tapestries by Margret Eicher, which portrayed whimsical, sometimes disturbing, allegorical depictions of the decadence of modern Western culture.

Post-museum, I swung back to the hostel to get settled (checking in early means a better chance of a bottom or unattached bunk), and then headed right back out again in search of lunch.  I picked the Althaus Cafe on a whim, and as it turned out, Lonely Planet thought I'd made a very smart choice.  Lonely Planet and I agree!

Thuringian bratwurst

View from Althaus's sunny terrace during lunch

I'll tell you what, it is really hard to get tired of German food.  Both the fried potatoes and the sauerkraut had pieces of bacon, which the Germans call "speck".  Specks of speck, I slay myself.  Thuringians are almost as proud of their bratwurst as they are of Martin Luther (or maybe that should be the other way around?), and Rick Steves tells me this particular variety of sausage is "relatively" low in fat.  Huzzah!  Everything was amazingly delicious -- although I do have to say that this sauerkraut, whilst awesome, was not quite as good as the kraut I'd had back at Peter's Brauhaus in Cologne.  This, ladies and gents, is the reason I try to make it to the gym almost every day (when I am home).  This, and that long tall tower of cold, hoppy, malty, decadent bliss in the background.

For the rest of the afternoon, I did a lot of walking around.  Erfurt is pretty small, and even to get from one end of the city (town?) to the other shouldn't ever take longer than half an hour.  I visited the Stadtmuseum, which was even more boring than the Anger Museum, and also six euros, so I felt pretty comfy in not checking out Erfurt's third museum, housing Thuringian folk.

Erfurt's Rathaus

Statue of Martin Luther, and church

The best thing I did was stumble, completely by chance, onto a temporary photo exhibition by Steve McCurry.  Who is Steve McCurry?  You know him.  He's the guy who did this:

Photos were not allowed, but it was worth some gentle German chastising to get this.  All the same, I kind of wish I'd waited and blown my one illegal photo chance on one of his less well-known pieces, because there were just so many photographs there that just... took hold of you.

The most visually jarring photos were the ones from Afghanistan, which is where these two famous portraits were taken.  But McCurry has been literally all over the globe, documenting world events from 9/11 to the Kuwait oil fires, traveling to remote Tibetan villages and into war-torn ghettos, and snapping some of the truly most evocative portraits I've ever had the privilege of seeing.  Steve McCurry is a very, very talented, and very brave, photographer.  If ever you have the chance to see his work, take it.

Nearing the end of the day, I wanted to check out two bars (right next to each other, how often does that happen?), that my books had recommended.  One of them, Modern Masters, had gotten the nod from both Rick and LP, and was supposed to have some pretty fantastic cocktails.

I turned up for happy hour, ordered a delightful 4 euro caipi, and passed a most pleasant hour-and-change writing in my journal.  This was an excellent find, and I took Lisa back here on Friday.  The drinks were well-made and they didn't skimp on the good stuff.  Excellent atmosphere and very friendly, hospitable staff.

The next watering hole, Hemingway's, was decidedly not bad either but they upcharged me for my gin selection without telling me, which meant the 5.40 gin n' tonic I thought I'd ordered was closer to 8.40.  (I guess this was really my bad, I should know to ask about things like this.)  It was a nicely-sized glass at least, and while the place was pretty much empty when I walked in (always so awkward), it had started to fill up a little by the time I was ready to go.

Earlier, I had walked past an Irish pub, Dubliner's, and had decided that I'd see about getting dinner there.  (Is there a city in the world without an Irish pub somewhere named something to do with Joyce, shamrocks, or Dublin?  Oh yes -- in Georgia. :) )  Unfortunately this was a letdown after the other two places.  Service was not good, and there was a football match on.  (Fine if you like football, but personally I much prefer the guy-in-the-corner-with-a-guitar.)  Also, I don't know why I did this, but ordered a chicken and pasta dish instead of the fish and chips that clearly should have been the easy choice.  The food was tasty, but the service and the atmosphere meant I didn't stay for a second cider.

Walking home

Back at the hostel, and had a very quiet night in what seemed to be a completely empty establishment.  I was staying in the cheapest dorm, with seven beds, and while that room was full up, for all appearances that was the extend of it, because this place felt a Shining-level of deserted.  It was nice to have time to myself, but I missed the friendly hostel atmosphere and interesting conversations that can usually be found in the evenings if one is so inclined.

The next day, I'd be saying a temporary farewell to Erfurt and taking a little day trip to the nearby town of Eisenach.

Göttingen: Winning for churches-per-capita

Hello once again after another long(ish) silence!  The weekend is drawing to a close one more time, having been full of productivity and responsibleness.  But I can't even pretend to complain, because on Wednesday morning I will be off on my first Big German Adventure!  Erfurt and Weimar, with day trips to Gotha (or maybe Eisenach instead?) and Buchenwald.  Six days, five nights -- and I will have an actual, real-live travel buddy joining me on Friday!  Germans get a 4-day weekend because of Easter, so a good friend and I decided to make the most of it.

Of course, nothing says "get off your ass and write a freaking blog post that's so overdue it's getting silly" like having another adventure just on the horizon, which of course will need to be blogged as well.  So without further ado, here's a little day trip I decided to take a couple weeks ago, to the very cute nearby town of Göttingen.

Göttingen is only 20 minutes away by ICE, which means that it was a deliciously astonishing 35 minutes between walking out my front door and touching down in the Göttingen Bahnhof.  That's less time than it takes me to travel between client sites in Kassel!

There's not exactly a ton of historical goodness in Göttingen, but there are a fair few churches (natch), and the town itself is utterly charming.  I was blessed with some pretty perfect weather, so picked up a map/walking tour at the Rathaus and set out for a day of wandering.

Gänseliesel (Goosegirl) Fountian, paying homage to one of my favorite fairytales

Inside the Rathaus

St. Johannis, early 14th c.

I'm realizing as I do this that there might not be a terrible lot of text to this post.  "I walked from this place to that place, avoided fellow tourists, sharks, and giggling university students as best I could" is pretty much going to be the entirety of the transition from one pretty picture to the next.  That said, here are some photos of this really cute town!

 

I checked out St. Michael's, Göttingen's first Catholic church (18th c.), but it was unimpressive, so I doubled back and checked out St. Jacobi's, which certainly was.

Loved the chevrons on the columns

I wanted to take a look at Göttingen's one museum, the Stadtmuseum, but it was closed for some reason.  Oh well.  It really was to gorgeous of a day to spend it inside.  Instead, I walked up to see another church, St. Albani's, just to throw some novelty into the day.  But the outside was meh and I couldn't get inside because they were rehearsing a concert or something, so it was on to the Botanical Gardens.

The gardens were quite pretty and peaceful, but Spring had yet to truly "spring" at that point so things were kind of bare.  Another month  or so from then (hey, that would be about... now), the I imagine the gardens would be beautiful.

It was getting to be way past lunchtime, so I walked around looking for somewhere promising.  The place I picked was off the beaten path a little and delightfully run-down, with crumbling mortar and colorful outside tables.  I sat... and waited... and eventually went inside to order as I had not seen anything resembling a member of the staff going on 15 minutes.  There was kind of a language barrier fun situation, but I got a beer ordered.

(Almost immediately I realized I had stumbled into what was well and truly a very local bar, and so managed to spare myself the awkwardness of asking for food. This, btw, is exactly why I love traveling by myself.  Pretty much any travel companion I could think of would have been put off by this seedy dive, and if that hadn't done it, the lack of service and then lack of menu would have meant we'd be moving on about now.  As for me, I was perfectly happy to postpone lunch and just sit in the sunshine for a little bit, rest my legs and sip on a liquid brunch [liquid breakfast had been coffee on the train]).

Except when my beer came it was... sweet.  I realized that I had, either through miscommunication or spite, been served a Radler, a German concoction of half beer and half Sprite.  This was decidedly not what I had ordered.  I suppose "Krombacher" could be mistaken for "Radler"?  Maybe???  Not really.  But all the same.  I had my refreshment, and I can add "Radler" to my list of "German things I have tried once and therefore never need to try again".  It was still very excellent to sit in the sun and have a rest, and they were really nice to me outside of the beer thing.

Post-(half)libation, I walked down to see St. Marien's.  For real, I am just plain running out of not-another-church jokes here.

More of adorable Göttingen

Inside St. Marien's

"The old gate to the new city"

 The last big item on my Göttingen checklist was the Bismarckhäuschen, the "student home" of none other than Otto von Bismark.

You're supposed to be able to go inside, but it was closed despite the fact that it was supposed to be open.  Seriously, is this the norm for all travelers, or am I just special?  :)

So very, very time for lunch that was now probably also going to be dinner.  I wanted to splurge at this steakhouse housed inside a famous old building, but when I walked in there wasn't a staff member to be seen and only one table was filled.  It looked... pricey.  Very, very empty, and pricey.  I made my escape and ended up at Meyer's, a Lonely Planet recommended place, that I had walked by earlier because it looked very boring, but inside it was actually quite cute and they had a huge outside terrace.  I asked if I could sit outside, and they graciously sat me at the last free table, not even making a face at my single-person-self taking up a valuable four-top.

I got a beer, a real beer this time, and roast beef with fried potatoes, which was simply heavenly.

I am always so amused by the perfunctory German "salad", hiding meekly in the background

And that was pretty much it for Göttingen.  On my way back to the train station, I stopped in at another LP recommendation, Monster, and had a glass of sekt, or German sparkling white wine.  The service was pretty glacial however, and not much was happening inside or out.  It was only 6:30ish though, so maybe things pick up later.

Oh yeah -- I can't leave you without at least mentioning the Göttingen bicycle ocean.

Verdict?  Göttingen is pretty much the cutest damn little place ever.  The weather made a huge difference in the day -- if it had been cold, or rainy, or hot, I probably wouldn't have had a very good time.  As it was, it was nothing but pure pleasure to walk around for hours, taking pictures and exploring.  Dinner at Meyer's was an unqualified success, I can recommend them.  Overall, an extremely pleasant day-well-spent.

As always, stay tuned.  New adventures, travel mistakes, and awkward embarrassments are just around the corner!

Cologne: History and beer on the Rhine

Exciting awesome weekend!... Fail.

Despite good intentions, this weekend may very well have ended up being even more boring than the last one.  More housecleaning (I found a Swiffer mop with wet and dry cloths!), gym (both days!), making food for the week (chicken vindaloo), and yes... TPS Reports, emails, and planning.  I am actually getting a class observed tomorrow, so Monday's guaranteed to be a great fucking day and not at all stressful.  Good thing my last class is five minutes away from the best cocktails in Kassel, at the one PentaHotel.

(I wanted to put a clip here of Nora Charles saying "All right, will you bring me five more martinis?  You can line them right up here."  Sadly youtube only has longer montages of The Thin Man, which would ruin my clever joke.)

Next weekend I am taking a day trip if it kills me.

Set the way-back machine to three whole weeks ago!  My final day in Köln.

Got a little bit of a later start on Sunday.  Saturday night, I hadn't wanted to eat a full dinner after my gigantic, filling, and late lunch, so just got something called a frikadelle, which is basically a small German hamburger patty.  It was tasty enough but just really heavy and greasy, and it didn't sit well in my stomach from the get-go.  'Course, come 4:00 AM Sunday morning, I had the intense privilege of climbing down from my creaky, squeaky top bunk so I could go and be sick in the room's ensuite.  When enjoying a hostel stay, there are just a few things beyond your control that you just pretty much hope will never happen to you.  Bedbugs are one.  Having to barf where the entire room can hear you, after your bunk exit has doubtless woken everyone up at 4:00 in the morning, is another.

Eventually got back to sleep.  And thank goodness, when I woke up at about 9:00, everyone else in the room had already checked out so I was spared any additional embarrassment.  Small favors.

Coffee in the cafe again, and out to see more of beautiful Cologne before my 4:00 train.

The first thing I wanted to see was the NS-Dokumentationszentrum, or National Socialism Documentation Center.  The site was a Gestapo headquarters during WWII.  But it was closed until 11:00 (Sunday, I'm glad it was open at all), so I walked down the street to check out the Kölnisches Stadtmuseum, which documents the history of the city from Medieval times up to WWII.  It hadn't been on my list, but yesterday I'd bought Cologne's Museum Pass, which meant both the Stadtmuseum and the NS-D were free!

The Stadtmuseum was pretty interesting.  They offered audioguides free of charge, and usually I'm not an audioguide person but I went for it and it ended up making the museum much more worthwhile.  Killed a pleasant hour here before circling back to the NS-D.

 
My auidioguide told me a fun little story about the "Inquisitive Tailor's Wife".  Apparently once upon a time, goblins would visit Cologne and do nice things without ever being seen.  However, one night the Tailor's Wife tried to trick the goblins into showing themselves, and as a result the little guys have deserted Cologne forever.

At the NS-Dokumentationszentrum, there isn't much on the ground floor.  The basement, however, had been used as a prison when this was a Gestapo headquarters, and they've preserved this as a museum.

This site was, unquestionably, one of the ugliest and most unsettling places I have ever been.

Many of the cell walls are covered in graffiti, and reading the translations was heartbreaking.  It's just hard to imagine that something like this could ever have even been allowed to happen.  And that in some parts of the world, it is still happening.

This is something you should not miss in Cologne.  It's important to remember that this ugly reality was really not all that long ago.  Just be prepared to leave feeling very chilled.  I was affected more strongly than I thought I would be, and was very grateful to emerge back out into the sunshine and 2014.

After the NS-D, I took a walk to the cathedral to reset my head, and decided I'd like to try my last-minute luck at taking a short river cruisetour on the Rhine.  I walked along the river and soon found an open kiosk selling tickets (most are still closed for the season), and they had a boat that was leaving in literally two minutes.  Last-minute luck extreme success!  I walked onboard and thought how sweet it would be if the boat happened to have drinks.  Sipping a glass of breakfast/lunch Kölsch while watching Cologne slip by sounded just about ideal.  And wouldn't you know, not three minutes I sat down, a waiter made a circuit and I got my glass of Kölsch.  Didn't even have to leave my seat!! :)

The tour was an hour, the sun was shining, it it was all-around a fantastic way to get some gorgeous views of the city and pick up a little extra history.

Medieval tower sandwiched between modern apartment blocks.

Post-cruisetour, I realized I had made a really stupid error by leaving Persephone at the hostel.  I was literally five minutes from the train station, and simply could have stashed her in a locker there.  Instead, I had to make an hour-long round trip to the hostel and back, which of course was an hour lost seeing the city.  Dumb.  I could have knocked out another church or two!  But I decided that, rather than rush at the end, I'd go get the backpack now, and eat lunch after.  So that happened.  I was worried I'd have to rush through my last meal in Köln, but I ended up having plenty of time.

For said last meal, I wanted to visit a Rick Steves-recommended place, Peter's Brauhaus.  I'm really glad I did.

Pork... leg(?), sauerkraut, mashed potatoes

This traditional German feast of a meal is one I won't soon forget.  How often do you get to say that sauerkraut was the highlight of any meal???  This sauerkraut was amazing.  So flavorful, with little bits of bacon!  The mashed potatoes and pork were delicious too.  Pair all this with a couple glasses of Kölsch, and Peter's Brauhaus was a very, very delightful was to say Auf Wiedersehen to Köln.

A beautiful city, and a great -- if exhausting -- experience.

Where to next, you ask?  Not sure, but Thuringia is looking pretty attractive.

Cologne: museums, churches, beer, and one very questionable condiment

Adulthood once again rears its boring head in Kassel!  This weekend has included:  the laundromat, the gym (only on Sunday, half a success), the housecleaning, the German tax form, the mending (socks and buttons), the grocery shopping (once again I forgot exactly how much a "kilo" of ground beef actually is, and will be having a friend for hamburgers tomorrow), and -- of course -- the TPS Report, the work-related emails (MANY), and the lesson planning.  And the blog, in progress.

The highlight of this weekend was Friday, where plans to make dinner at my place for a friend as a thank-you for a favor turned into my making dinner at his place for him and his roommate, and then, finally, dinner for friend, roommate friend, and two of her friends.  I made teriyaki salmon, cold sesame noodles, avocado crostini, and a green salad with strawberries, walnuts, and blue cheese.  I think it came out pretty well.  Go me.  It was very chill and laid back, and surprisingly not stressful at all.  Just some good wine and food and conversation with friends.  Home before midnight, whoop whoop.

Saturday and Sunday, unfortunately, were less fun.  But them's the breaks.  Shit is accomplished.

However, LAST weekend was pretty overflowing with awesome, so things balance out.  I went to go check out beautiful Köln, or as we Americans like to say, Cologne.

I couldn't leave Kassel until the evening on Friday, so ended up getting into Cologne at about 11:00 PM.  I came out of the Hauptbanhof looking for the sign for the metro, and got the surprise of my life as I found myself staring at the dark hulking gothic behemoth that is Kölner Dom.  "OH!" I said aloud, and stopped dead in my tracks, staring up, mouth open.  Highly uncool of me, and also possibly unsafe as surely I did not look tough, savvy, and unapproachable right just then.  (Germany so far has been almost weirdly safe, btw.  Of all the countries I've visited, Germany has offered the least harassment and shenanigans. [They make up for this with regulations, forms, and shock at jaywalking.])

I shook myself out of my tourist stupor and metroed to my hostel.  Weltempfänger Backpacker Hostel is pretty boss, I have to say.  There is a very adorable cafe/bar on the ground floor, complete with chandeliers, antique couches, indie rock on the PA, and -- of course -- bottles of Kölsch beer for the quite attractive price of 1.50 euro.  The rest of the hostel is clean and pretty quiet.  There's a nice common room/full kitchen on the 1st floor; it would be pretty easy to cook a cheap backpacker meal here, although I didn't.  I stayed in a co-ed 4-bed dorm with an ensuite (this will unfortunately become relevant later), and overall don't think I could find one thing to complain about here.  Staff were pretty great.  And hey -- no bedbugs! (That I know of.)  Highly recommended.

Saturday morning, I woke up at 7:30 AM for some reason.  Weird, but it meant I got myself a very nice early start.  Got some coffee downstairs in the cafe and planned my day.  When I asked the on-duty staffer for recommendations, she said that if she wasn't working, she'd be going to this flea market that happens on Saturdays, and gave me directions.  Now, I am not an "other people's crap" kind of person, but she seemed very emphatic and since it was still pretty early... I went to check it out.  I figured it'd be a nice step away from the de rigueur of museums and churches, at any rate.

Yup.  It was a big parking lot filled with... other people's crap.  Lots of books.  Tons of shoes, for some reason.  Clothes.  Crystal and china.  Antique cell phones and other defunct electronics.  Random creepy stuff.  I suppose if I were to ever actually put down roots somewhere, and had an apartment bigger than a shoebox, it might be cool to comb through a place like this and look for random funky touches to give my home some character.  But for my life right now... not so much.  I did a quick circuit and was probably on my way again in less than 20 minutes.  Enough deviating from the pattern!  I was off to see a church... and some museums.

Now, I have seen something like quite a few churches in my day.  Notable, famous, ancient, breathtakingly beautiful churches.  Kölner Dom, however, is just really something else.  It's the most visited site in Germany, and standing there in the platz and just looking up and up at this, it's obvious as to why.  The year it was finished, 1880, it was the tallest building in the world.  It is mind-blowingly, breathtakingly beautiful.  My favorite church ever.  Hands down.

I'd brought Rick Steves with me to Köln, mainly because of his very detailed descriptions of all the hidden gems and historical goodies inside the Dom.  I did not want to miss anything.

However.  Yet another travel disappointment here.  The back part of the church, were most of said goodies are, was closed when I was there.  According to Rick, this should not be the case as it usually only closes for confession which is in the afternoon and it was very much still morning, but oh well.  If I hadn't brought Rick along, I never would have even known what I was missing.  Ignorance is bliss.

Rick did point out this crucifix from the 10th century, very awesome.

And even with a significant part being blocked off, it was still very much full of awesome.

Back outside, it had turned into spring!  The sun was shining and it was 60 degrees at least.  I went around to the side of the Dom and sat for a little while, people-watching and cathedral-ogling.

Right next to the Dom is the Römisch-Germanisches Museum, which, as you might expect from its name, houses Roman artifacts excavated from the region.  The highlight is a mosaic floor, which was left in its original place and the museum built up around it.

The museum was cool enough but really pretty dry.  They had a large jewelry exhibit which was impressive.  But my favorite thing was a photography installation of works by Alfred Seiland.

Seiland has traveled from the Middle East to Hadrian's Wall, photographing Roman ruins juxtaposed, sometimes jarringly, sometimes whimsically, against some aspect of mundane modernity.  I got a kick out of this one:

This, ladies and gents, is a photo of a photo of an exhibit in the museum where the photograph is displayed.  I think I just broke my brain with irony.

Speaking of irony, it was time for some... modern art!  (Eve would be ready to kill me right about now, I expect.)  Also right next to the Dom is the Museum Ludwig, an impressive collection of modern art from the early impressionists up to contemporary installations.  I wish I knew more about modern art.  I didn't recognize many of the names here, although there is a truly noteworthy Picasso collection, as well  as a smattering of the greats -- Man Ray, Mondrian, Duchamp, even Giacometti.  On the top floor, they have a lot of Warhol and Lichtenstein but pop art is not my thing.  I did not find any of my beloved Arte Povera here sadly.

Picasso

After the RGM and the Ludwig, I was seriously museumed-out.  I walked along the Rhine for a bit, and soon found myself at... the doors of -- yes, another church.  The 10th century Romanesque Groß St. Martin.

This church reminded me so much of a Georgian Orthodox church for some reason.  I especially loved how you could see remains of frescoes on the walls, sometimes barely discernible.  For .50 euro, you could go down into the basement where Roman ruins have been excavated.

Now, I still had not eaten that day, unless coffee counts as food.  I began my strolling search to find a promising prospect for breakfast/lunch/dinner (it was about 3:30).  I walked through a very cute square next to the Rathaus, but the sun and warmth had brought every Kölner out in force!"  Not a table to be had here.

Rathaus

Haha

 

However, because of the freakishly amazing weather, when I did settle on a place, I was able to sit outside at this very cute little cafe near(ish) the river and ordered up some Kölsch and some "Kölner tapas".

Before you, you see:  bacon, fried onion straws, a lil chicken schnitzel, liverwurst, blood sausage, lentils, gouda cheese, some very pretty garnish... and a ball of lard.

First off, I want to say that this lunch was very, very good.  It is hard to fuck up bacon and fried onions, although Georgians have tried.  I even really liked the liverwurst, which has not been my favorite in times past.

However.  I had never tried blood sausage before, because frankly the concept sounds really gross.  But I am a big fan of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations", and Tony never lets a chance slip by to tell me how fucking amazing blood sausage is.  Besides -- Germany.  I had to give it a go.

And now I know.  And I never have to eat blood sausage again.  Sorry Tony.

The other memorable lowlight of my otherwise fantastic lunch was that little white golf ball sitting between the liverwurst and the gouda.  I didn't know what it was, but my adventurous soul cut out a little sliver and put it in my mouth.  Yep, that was one giant tasteless, sticky, oil slick of an experiment.  Um... seriously Germany???  A ball of lard?  How is this in any way a good idea?  EVER???

After lunch, I was pretty tired and also pretty freaking full of Kölsch and German tapas.  I walked along the river some more, with no real plan or destination, for what ended up being quite a while.  Poked my head into yet another church (pretty unmemorable), just for kicks.

My own poor attempt at a Seiland-style photo

And then it was time to head back to the hostel for some much-needed downtime and yeah, another Kölsch.  My day had worn me out.  But my hostel had kindly provided me with a small local map of the area, that included vetted nightspots.  I felt like I couldn't just sit in the hostel all night, so at around 8:00 I headed out and checked out a few.  Had a pretty good time, as good as solo low-key barhopping can get.  It's just basically me and my kindle or my journal, ignoring everyone and everything around me, pretty much exactly what I'd be doing if I had stayed at the hostel.  Headed back before too late.  Had more on my list for tomorrow before my train at 4:00!

And that, lovers, was my very full day in Cologne.  I loved it, and the gorgeous weather certainly did not hurt.  At the very least, an extremely worthy follow-up to the success of Heidelburg.  Stay tuned for day two!