Atherton Family Notes

Ken’s idea of a vacation is to get up at 5am, be on the road by 6am, and see as much as you can the first day. My idea is a bit different considering I have to feed a baby in the wee hours of the night. I did get lucky because Ken could not drag his butt out of bed at 5. We awoke an hour later than scheduled and were on the road by 7am. We still arrived in Köln by lunch time. True to our nature, we found lunch at McDonald’s (what a BIG surprise). We headed out to explore the city and were taken back by the amount of cold wind making it’s way through the city center. The girls found an empty fountain to play in and had a blast (no pun intended). After a bit of play the girls and I headed back to the hotel for a nap. While we were getting out beauty sleep Ken set off to explore the church and the city.

One of the first sights I saw upon arriving at our hotel was a “Chicago Steak House” right next door. They advertised steak served with baked potato and Caesar salad. MMMMM…. Could it be true? We beelined our way there for dinner. It didn’t take much to convince Ken to go. The kids were remarkably well behaved and we very much enjoyed our dinner that was true to it’s name: “A wonderful taste of home.”  Soon after our dinner was served a couple came by and sat at the table next to us. We began a conversation with them and learned they were from Colorado and on a 3 week tour of Europe. I could have stayed there in dream land with my good steak and English conversation for several days but reality in the form of three kids told me it was time to move on. So we said our well wishes and good-byes and made our way back to the hotel.

The kids were tucked into bed and about an hour and half later I think they went to sleep. I say “I think” because they could have been out partying for all I know. My head hit the pillow and I was out. End of day 1 and the start of 11 days of exhaustion.

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The people of Cologne have made a conscious effort to preserve the historical heritage of the city. What that means to us, as tourists, is that the skyline of the old city has been well preserved, and also that many historical structures, some dating back to Roman times, can still be seen.

On the other hand, Cologne is still a big city, and in some ways feels like any major metropolis with all the hustle and bustle one can stand. In that sense, Cologne wasn’t one of Sandi’s favorite cities, but I still found it fascinating.

The skyline of central Cologne. You can see in the distance that some skyscrapers have been built, but they are kept far from the city center. The biggest such buildings are built in the opposite direction from where this panorama was made. from left to right, the three major building pictured are the “Neue Rathaus”, Gross St. Martin, and the Cathedral. The bridge over the Rhein leads to the main train station just behind the Cathedral.

A satellite map of the same area, at a 1 pixel = 1 square meter scale. The details are a little unclear. The tower of the Rathaus is just above the letter “h” in “Rathaus”, and the tower of Gross St. Martin is just above the “M” in “Martin”.

It’s clear that most of the area in the photograph is decidedly modern. It’s easier to undertake such renewal projects if the previous buildings are destroyed by bombs.

Our hotel is located south of the Cathedral. If you look immediately south of the cathedral, you can see a big sqaure building (the Roman-German Museum). Just south of that are two more smaller buildings. Our hotel is right across the street from there.

This is the remains of a portal through the city wall built by the Romans in the fourth century. This wall, if it still existed, would pass through the north side of the cathedral. In fact, the cathedral is casting the shadow that runs through most of the picture. I believe the portal itself has been reconstructed, but using stones from the original wall.

This is the steakhouse where we ate dinner the first night. It sits directly across the square from the Cathedral. Normally, I would make fun of people that seek out food from back home while on vacation, instead of trying the local cuisine, but in this case I felt it was justified for us. We’ve been eating the local cuisine for a long time. Eating at this restaurant was like taking a mini-vacation home to Indiana. Juicy steaks, baked potatoes, and Cesar salad. Yummm! It was the first time we had food like this in almost a year.

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