Day Three Pictures - Cologne

One of the many elaborate churches lining the Rhine when we were entering the city of Cologne.

William and Mom as the ship is entering the city in the early morning.

It was very windy and cool, so William thought I needed a bear hug to warm up! :)

Our first view of the Cologne Cathedral or Dom - the cathedral that took 632 years to build!

The "clock" that does not measure time, but measures the water level of the Rhine River.  It only measures ten meters because until the 1990s, the water level had never been higher than that but it rose nearly eleven meters twice in one year.  After extensive flooding of the city, they built higher water barriers that reach eleven and a half meters.

This the exterior of one of the Brauhaus, or cafe where they brew and serve their own beers.

The Gothic cathedral was so large up close that it almost did not seem real.  It seemed more like a very detailed sketch than a building.  There was so mauch to see, it was difficult to take it all in at once.

In a museum just outside of the cathedral is this Roman mosaic floor.  It was the floor of a Roman palace and made of thousands of small tiles.  It was found by accident when the city was building a bomb shelter during World War II.  It is rare to find such a large area of flooring nearly intact, so they built the shelter around and over the mosaic and then converted the shelter into a museum after the war.

A closer look at a bit of the detail on the exterior of the cathedral.  There are many such statues on the sides of the walls.  Each appears to be life size or very close to it.

The interior of the Dom is mainly one large room with a vaulted ceiling and branches that formed small chapels on the sides.

The walls, like most gothic style cathedrals, were covered in enormous stained glass windows.  As it was built over 632 years and suffered bombings during World War II, not all of the windows match.  You can see that part of the window on the left was blown out by a bomb and replaced with a different style of window.  In order to preserve the windows, many were removed during the war for safe keeping.

In the chapels surrounding the alter, there were several coffins of the former bishops of the cathedral.  They wanted to be buried close to the alter where there is a gold case containing what they believed were the bones of the Three Wise Men.  It was believed that it would aid them in going to heaven with the saints on judgement day.

William getting one last shot of the front of the cathedral before we make our way through the town and back to the ship.