Impressions of Cologne

Cologne first announces itself through its cathedral. You arrive in the city centre and there it is: huge, dark and impossible to ignore.

Founded by the Romans in the first century AD, Cologne lies on the banks of the Rhine. Its symbol, the enormous Cologne Cathedral "Kölner Dom" makes no attempt at modesty when you stand in front of it.

Construction of this gigantic building began in the 13th century and was completed about 650 years later. It is difficult to imagine a building project lasting that long.

Let's go inside.

Once you are inside the cathedral, it is almost impossible not to be affected by the atmosphere. Still, I cannot resist mentioning that the congregation seemed to consist of more Japanese tourists than Catholic Germans.

Back outside, the building of the Dom Hotel almost directly opposite me, caught my eye. Its façade has something slightly French about it and I thought it made an aesthetically pleasing companion to the cathedral.

Once you move away from the area around the cathedral, Cologne is not a city of particularly attractive architecture. Much of it is plain and rather monotonous. A little knowledge of the city's recent history explains why.

Towards the end of the Second World War, British and American bombing devastated Cologne. According to a German friend of mine, the whole city was reduced to a pile of rubble in just eight hours.

I became curious and looked into it. In a book about those years I found a photograph showing what Cologne looked like after the war.

It may seem miraculous that the cathedral survived while tons of bombs were falling on the city. Apparently, though, its enormous size and unmistakable shape made it useful to Allied aircraft as a landmark for locating Cologne, so it was deliberately not targeted they say. The streets around it survived as well.

Almost everywhere else had been destroyed. With an urgent need for housing after the war, simple buildings went up with little concern for aesthetics. Those buildings still shape much of Cologne today.

Does that mean there is no modern distinct architecture? Of course not. New development, especially along the Rhine has tried to break up the slightly worn-out feeling of much of the city. Some of it looks as though the architects had been admiring science-fiction films.

Whether it is attractive or not, you can decide for yourself.

At the end of the working day, I walked along the Rhine, getting some fresh air and taking the photographs you see here.

The Hohenzollern Bridge is one of the many bridges connecting the two banks of the river. It was built for the railway but there are pedestrian paths on both sides. The view below caught my attention. I liked the silhouettes of people appearing between the steel structure of the bridge.

The last light of the day is my favourite time for taking photographs. Even the scene below which is really nothing more than two ugly buildings and a tower crane, takes on a rather magical atmosphere at this hour.

With the sky almost completely dark, the steps in front of the Cologne Philharmonic concert hall near the cathedral, began to look rather surreal. To take the photograph below I took a small risk and wandered into places where I probably wasn't supposed to be.

Again, the scene looks as though it belongs in a science-fiction film. Modern architecture sometimes seems to steal ideas from the future simply to contradict the old. We shall see which style proves more permanent.

I mentioned that Cologne's history goes back to the Roman Empire. Unfortunately, very little remains of Roman Cologne today. Still, the city has placed a substantial Romano-Germanic Museum right in its centre as a reminder of that past.

I made a short visit. The pieces below clearly belonged to a very large building.

Like so many European cities, Cologne has its main railway station right in the centre. The Hauptbahnhof sits in the very heart of the city. As far as I can tell, its main entrance is Bauhaus in style. Standing in front of it at night, it seems to greet you as if saying “I have nothing to hide.”

There is something slightly Kafkaesque about the darkness in this scene, but I like the atmosphere.

Let's go back to daylight.

There are some beautiful buildings in the streets around the cathedral that escaped the bombing during WW2. Walking past one of them, I noticed how the upper parts of the wooden window frames had been made to follow the original structural form of the building.

What an effort!

One of the scenes I came across in Cologne was a group of flight attendants walking along a street in deep shadow, while the distant background behind them was flooded with sunlight. A challenge for photography. Unfortunately, I am not a good street photographer. I wasn't quick enough to compose the frame properly, and the right foot of the woman closest to me did not make it into the photograph.

While taking one last look around, another scene caught my eye. In front of the enormous mass of the cathedral, a couple were embracing, completely indifferent to it and living in their own little world.

So these are my impressions of Cologne. From a tourist's point of view, I wouldn't call it a particularly tempting city. It feels more like a city of business and trade fairs.

Still, don't let me prejudice you. You may arrive here one day and have the best time of your life.

After all that seriousness, one last Cologne photograph seems more in keeping with the spirit of Pi-r-squared.