Des and Neil’s Rest Day!

Today dawned misty, humid (91% humidity and heavily overcast.) We were tired after the big emotional high of our Rembrandt Run yesterday. But hey, this was our last day in Cologne, and we won’t be back anytime soon, so we headed off through the empty streets (today being a feast day holiday) down to the mighty River Rhine. (Cue Wagner🎶 Siegfried’s Rhine Journey).

The Rhine had swollen with flooding overnight. The riverside promenade was flooded, with Warning High Water signs closing access.

We found our cruise boat and sat on the upper deck watching the City go by while eating sausage and chips with curry sauce. A panorama of cultural treasures carefully reconstructed after the Allied bombing, cheap boxy housing run up after the war to house what was left of the people, and modern luxury apartments in interesting designs.

From time to time mega barges would shoulder their purposeful way past us.

In NZ we have seagulls. On the Rhine, ravens. I kept looking about anxiously for an old man with a floppy hat and one eye.

After the cruise we walked back through the Old Market and main shopping areas. Interesting to look at but saved from temptation as they were all shut!

Our last port of call was the Roman-German Museum. The Roman Emperor Augustus founded a city here in the first century CE: Colonia Claudia Ara Aggippinensium. This strategic site was a major military and trade centre. Soldiers, traders, workers, craftsmen, families came from all over the world, telling their stories in inscriptions and the huge numbers of everyday things like the 1.6 million objects , from boathooks to nit combs, retrieved by archaelogists from the bottom of the Roman harbour.

Wealthy citizens lived in city villas decorated with mosaic floors, wall paintings, fine tableware, exquisite glassware and jewellery.

We were running out of legs after viewing these treasures, remarkable because they all came from the same place over hundreds of years. Luckily the helpful lady at the desk pointed out a taxi stand a few metres away, so we gratefully took our throbbing feet home!

Time to pack up and prepare for our big rail journey tomorrow - four plus hours north to Hamburg.Read more