Today we met our professor outside the Cologne Cathedral. He gave us time to go inside of it and see what it looks like since we had yet to do so. The inside of the cathedral is not as nearly as interesting as the exterior. After we took all of our pictures and came back out of the cathedral he told us a few things about it. Apparently the cathedral is so dark on the outside because of coal dust in the air that stuck to it and the city started to clean some of it off, but then decided that it looks better in its current dirty state. I can't decide if I prefer the cathedral covered in coal dust or if it would be better cleaned. The dust adds to the Gothic feel of the cathedral, but the portion that had been cleaned shows detail really well.
We walked around for a while after seeing the cathedral. We went through the shopping district again to get to the Kolumba museum. There was ruins of a church in Cologne and the architect Peter Zumthor was commissioned to create a museum around these ruins. In the large room with the actual ruins there is a pathway that you walk on above the old church. Zumthor made it so that you never disturb the ruins. He also left holes in the brick exterior of the room so that it is always the temperature of the outside. If he hadn't done so the bricks and stone of the ruins would dry out and crumble from being indoors. There were quite a few art pieces on the floors above that room, but I they were really odd and I wasn't a big fan of that part. I guess I'm not much of an art museum person.
Our professor took us down to the river after the Kolumba to show us some more buildings and to talk about some plans for the upcoming days since some of the group was heading back to Antwerp shortly after that. We ended up having dinner at another brew house that our professor knew of. I had some sort of goulash that came in a bread bowl. It was pretty delicious.
After dinner I did a little souvenir shopping and then went to a grocery store in the train station for some essentials; more Ritter Sport!
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| My favorite stained glass window in the Cologne Cathedral |
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| Part of the cathedral that was cleaned |
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| Some guy playing the didgeridoo in the shopping district |
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| The pathway above the ruins in the Kolumba museum |
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