Köln

The Cologne cathedral is a UNESCO World Heritage site; it's imposing and gothic and used to be the biggest in Europe. It was indeed mighty impressive. Here's looking up at the facade:

And a bit of the interior:

And two even more beautiful things:

The city of Cologne is not very pretty, which makes the cathedral stand out:



More impressive still was the chocolate museum, which included a working chocolate factory and a chocolate fountain.



You can rent beer bikes and peddle them around the city while drinking.




Cologners brew a special kind of beer called kölsch, which is sorta midway between a lager and an ale: it's stored cold like a lager (lager is the German word for storage) but brewed with ale yeast. Fruity and quenching. One of my German friends calls it a woman's beer. I brought back a few bottles:




Yes, cologne is from Cologne. The original smells citrusy. Not bad. Cologne also has many art museums, which we didn't go to, but art is everywhere: