Weekend II: Of Canceled Plans, Huge Cathedrals and Chocolates

It was Friday and our plan for the weekend was still undecided. "Sigh" I thought to myself "This weekend is gonna be so boring!". So I sat down to think on how I could make it a little interesting. I already knew that people from Swiss and Austria were coming to Munich.

So I started looking for ways to reach Munich and things to do there. And obviously I wanted to keep it as cheap as possible, so Happy Weekend Ticket was the way. The weekend ticket means I need upto 5 people, at least 3 to keep it affordable (since I was low on cash). I pinged Vivek to decide plans and they both (Vivek and Vinay) wanted to join in on the trip. They came to my lab and we sketched out rough travel plan. In the afternoon, I asked Om and he too agreed. After spending some time to finalize the fine details of the trip, we had a travel plan ready. I went to Treff to do some shopping, got back home and got ready for the trip, for which we were to leave early morning.

Then I get a call from Vivek saying that they'd decided not to go. My plan went to ruins in an instant. I tried to talk them into going again, but their excuses were unsurmountable :P. With just 2 people, we could not go on the weekend, so me and Om decided may be it'd be best to leave this trip and go somewhere on Sunday instead. On Saturday, Om sketched out a plan for Köln or Cologne.

So early morning on Sunday, we (Me, Om and Ankita, who is another intern student) were off on a train to Cologne via Saarbrücken, where Manpreet and his friend Abhinav were to join us. The route from Saarbrücken to Koblenz was pretty scenic and went parallel to the Rhine river. The weather too had cleared out, setting stage for a nice weekend trip. We reached Cologne by 11:30, where Ankita's friend Sonam joined in.
And so began our tour of Cologne. We started with Kölner Dom or Cologne Cathedral. It is a pretty big church with its towers rising as high as 157 meters.



We first visited the cathedral treasury. I clicked a few pictures there, until I realized that photography was strictly prohibited [:P]. (Yes, I know its common sense in a Museum but getting a few shots is good, aint it? [;)] )


We finished that in about 45 minutes and went inside the cathedral. The church was really beautiful from the inside (and too big to be captured in camera shots), with beautiful artwork on glass and the 3 giant halls. When we entered, prayer ceremonies were in progress and hence, we were not to enter inside the main hall, not for photography at least.

We had planned to climb the cathedral's south tower, which has a total of 509 stairs to the top. After looking for some time, we finally found the entrance and started climbing. It was quite a long climb and slightly tiring, but the view from the top (even though spoiled by the grill out up all around) was worth it.


Once we were done with the tower, it was time to check out the city. The major attractions of the city were the museums, at least according to wiki travels. And we found out from the tourist information center that it was Museum Fest that day in Cologne, so quite a few museums were free of cost (Sounds cool, right? Not so cool though :P). We first entered this design museum named Museum für Angewandte Kunst or Museum of Applied Art, it was free and boring, to say the least. They have a collection of what they call "popular" design items, including infi types of chairs, capsule style TVs, pen drives with wooden covers, different radios over the years (which reminds me, there is an old radio in my department here, and by old I mean it has vacuum tubes and not transistors [:D] ), you get the idea. We got bored of it way too fast and finished it in about 15 minutes.

Next target was a place named Kolumba, which was an art museum. There we found out that not all museums were free and there was an entry fee of 5 euros for entry (and we happily ditched it [:)]). There was still a lot of time, so we decided to give a last art museum a try. It was Wallraf-Richartz Museum, which has a fine collection of art since medieval times. There was one exhibition open for free, so we a tour it. I am a fan of renaissance art, but there was hardly anything worth appreciating in that exhibition at least and plus nobody else was in a mood for touring art museums, so we decided we'll take a break and have a snack at McDs.

Done with art museums, there was one main attraction for visit, the Schokoladenmuseum or the Chocolate Museum by Lindt. A small walk and we were there. By far the best museum I ever visited (Obviously, its chocolate after all! [:)]).

Infinite types of chocolate to choose from in their store, a free trial of liquid Lindt chocolate from their chocolate fountain and a view of how your chocolate is made. A quick tour and we were down in the store to choose from infinitely awesome chocolates. There were chocolates I have never seen in any store. Eg. Extra butter 99% Cocoa chocolate, Chilli flavored chocolate, Dark chocolate with Chocolate Mousse and the list goes on. Unfortunately I had little money to spend, so I bought 6 bars in all. I might go down to Cologne once more for just this shopping [:)].

The view of the Rhine from the Museum's rooftop was pretty beautiful, so we took a few minutes to appreciate it, and we were off to catch our train. On reaching back to Kaiserslautern, I was greeted by a site I had been longing for since I got here, clear skies and the crescent Moon, its beauty magnified by Venus (which was also crescent, as I later found out).

And so, another adventurous weekend trip came to an end.

PS: For anyone planning to go to Cologne, I would suggest you take about 5 hours and visit the Cathedral and the chocolate museum and, in case you still find time, maybe you can go to one of the churches, which are a little distance from the station.

PPS: Find the complete album here