Cologne

After the Dusseldorf adventure, Doris took the day off (this was Friday--wow it feels like it's been so much longer than 4 days) and the three of us went to Cologne.
These shops were all over the train station, it seemed like. Le CroBag? It's a combination of croissant and baguette, fyi. I just thought it was funny. What a terrible word.











The Cathedral
We went to the Cologne cathedral--my first one ever! It took several hundred years to complete. This crane sat on the building for so long that it became a landmark of its own.
It's ginormous--largest facade of any church in the world. It blew me away.
Beautiful stained glass. There's a big modern panel of glass too, put in after the old one was destroyed. Personally, I like the old stuff better.
The shrine of the three kings that houses the relics that the Archbishop of Cologne supposedly got from Italy in the 12th century. Sorry, forgot to turn off my flash on that one. Read more on Wikipedia if you want. It's interesting.
A ginormous organ suspended from the ceiling!


A street in Cologne, which is really cute.
I ate my first real schnitzel here, at the appropriately-named Im Martinswinkel. It made me so happy. :)
A cool building.
A cool tower.
Another cute building.
A ginormous boat on the Rhine River.












The Chocolate
As we were walking along the adorable river looking at the adorable buildings we saw...the Lindt museum! That's right, the chocolate people! It was something we couldn't pass up.
After learning more about cocoa beans than I ever would have otherwise, we got to the really fun part. Anyone for a giant Lindt ball? :)
Yes, that is a chocolate fountain. Looks beautiful, tastes beautiful. We weren't too shy to go back to the lady handing out samples for seconds...or thirds. Okay, so I had four. The walking canceled it out.
There was a room with a little chocolate factory where you can see how it's done. Becky and I felt like bursting into Oompa-Loompa song. Here, the little magnetic robot thingy is sucking the chocolates on the next stage.
And here they're being wrapped...really fast.
Hope you enjoyed! Paris pictures coming soon.