Wednesday, 22 April 2020

Day 7: Köln

So far on my virtual 'lets pretend we're on a European road trip in order to pass the time whilst we're all in lockdown' I've been to Lille, Brussels, Eindhoven, Amsterdam, Bremen and Dortmund.

Having been to around 50 cities in Europe in total and with the measures not looking like they'll end anytime soon, there's every possibility I'll have the time to write articulated/creative nonsense on most, if not all of these different places.

So today, it's the turn of Köln (or Cologne in English); the fourth largest city in Deutschland and where the skyline is dominated by the unmistakable Köln Dom which can be seen from miles around.

I've been here around half a dozen times and there's loads of things to see/do and passing time won't be a problem because it's not a boring place like some cities.

The Köln Dom is located next to the Main Railway Station (Köln Hauptbahnhof) and, unless you've got the same eyesight as Stevie Wonder, then it's absolutely impossible to miss the cathedral as you come out the station and walk onto the main square. It's the symbol of Köln! Interestingly, my first visit here was in January 2016 and it was just a few weeks after the notorious 'en masse' sex attacks were carried out in this very square by migrants who'd fled to the country the previous year - thus resulting in huge social problems for many months afterwards.

The River Rhine divides the city into two parts and they're connected by a series of bridges with one of them being the Hohenzollern Bridge. It's covered in 'love locks' (a craze which I'll never understand why) and even though the local authorities have removed plenty in recent years because of the sheer additional weight they add to the structure, there's still thousands of them that can be seen.

There's plenty of River Rhine cruise options if you want to pass the time that way, as well as numerous museums and churches. The city also has an open air zoo and a cable car system which, intriguingly, passes over the summer 'hot spot' for nudist bathers on the banks of the River Rhine.

Köln is also a fantastic base for any football-related trips to Deutschland because it's in the heart of North Rhine-Westphalia - an area dominated by decent-sized clubs who will be household names to visitors from foreign shores.

Dortmund, Schalke (who are based in an old mining town called Gelsenkirchen), Mochengladbach and Dusseldorf are all roughly around an hour away. Leverkusen is easy to reach and is on the fringes of the city's extensive U-Bahn/S-Bahn train network.

Despite it's grandiose landscape and size, nevertheless, the city's own football team is enigmatic. 1.FC Köln have very, very good and passionate support which is amongst the best in Europe in terms of numbers. There was a time around 30 years ago when they were decent calibre opponents in UEFA club competitions but nowadays, they're something of a 'yo-yo' club - miles too good for Deutschland's second-tier but not quite good enough for the Bundesliga!

Their RheinEnergie Stadion sits in the western part of Köln around three miles from the centre but it's easy to reach by tram. Perhaps most memorably to English folk, it's the stadium where Michael Owen badly injured his knee in the 2006 World Cup on the same night Joe Cole scored an absolute 'worldie' against Sweden.

A couple of useful tips for those who are thinking of travelling here:

1) If you arrive here at Köln Airport (which also 'doubles up' as the Bus Terminus in an effort to keep transport out the city centre) then, if possible, pre-book your U-Bahn/S-Bahn tickets. Queues to use the very few ticket machines at the airport can be long to say the least.

2) Apart from one or two convenience shops in the Railway Station or the odd bakery, pretty much nothing else opens in Köln (and most of Deutschland, for that matter) on a Sunday.

I'll let you immerse yourself in the photos now of some of the things which this city has to offer:

































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