European Vacation - Day 17/18 (Cologne)

Cologne is...in a word...dirty.

We decided to go to Cologne because of their huge Cathedral, which is amazing architecture and took over 600 years to build!

We stayed at the Sofitel, which typically is a very nice hotel to stay at; however not in Cologne. It was marginal, at best. The air quality was sub-par and in the end I now have a sore throat and sinus issues. One bad day out of 18 isn't the end of the world.

We walked the pedestrian streets and shopped a bit. There is a chocolate museum in Cologne, so we walked along the river and stopped in for a tour and chocolate sample.

Chuck and I went into the huge Cathedral and he climbed the 509 steps up about 90 meter or 3/4 of the way up one of the towers. I sat in one of the pews and waited for him. He came down drenched and the first thing he said was it reminded him of the movie Shawshank Redemption. You know the line at the end of the movie when Morgan Freeman says of Tim Robbin's character (Andy Dufresne) "Andy crawled to freedom through five hundred yards of shit-smelling foulness I can't even imagine. Or maybe I just don't want to. Five hundred yards. That's the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile."

Apparently, the air was pretty foul in the stairwell. 509 steps of nasty smelling bodies...I can't even imagine.