CHAPTER 19: WIESBADEN, GERMANY
Wednesday, October 27

For our last sightseeing visit in central Germany, we went on a road trip. (Yes, a "road trip" the day before a 10-hour cross-country drive doesn't sound too bright, as Janis noted continually all afternoon). We headed north out of Wiesbaden on some 2-lane roads up through the Taunus mountains, across the Rhine, and into the Black Forest. The trees were at the height of their color changes: bright yellows, oranges, and reds covered the mountains. We passed through a number of incredibly picturesque villages with their own ancient castles and tower keeps and old stone gates. It seems like there was a castle, or a ruin, or at least a big pile of rocks on the top of every mountain in the area. I don't know where they got the name "Black Forest": the trees were every bit as colorful as they were on the other side of the river. The buildings, however, were made out of a very black rock (as opposed to tan or gray on the other side of the Rhine). Maybe that's where they got the name, but hey, that's the rock, not the forest, and don't those guys know the difference? I'm just a tourist, and I certainly picked up on it!

We wound up in Cologne, which the Germans spell "Koln", prounounced "Kerln" ... and if you can keep all that straight, you should live here. Kerln .... er, Koln was quite a lively city. We got lost on the way in, of course (we got lost on the way out, too) but finally found our way to where we wanted to go. I'm a big fan of a German artist from the early part of this century named Kathe Kollwitz, and Koln has a museum dedicated to her work. We visited it and they evidently hadn't heard we were coming, because the museum was closed. Drat. We wandered around the city center. Koln has many streets blocked to vehicular traffic, which makes it really great for pedestrians like us. It has a very lively shopping scene with some rather more creative fashions, furniture, and whatnot than we saw in London.

The highlight of the visit was the Koln cathedral. We walked around a corner from the shopping district and there it was. Absolutely gargantuan. You just lean back and look STRAIGHT UP forever and your jaw bounces off the pavement. Extremely ornate: spires all over the place and you wouldn't believe how high they go. It has twin towers that look like they go halfway to heaven. Now granted, it doesn't come anywhere near the height of a routine American skyscraper, but then a routine American skyscraper has absolutely no presence like this cathedral does. We went inside and I would seriously estimate the interior height from floor to ceiling as eight stories. The floor space could be measured in acres. All the windows were beautiful stained glass. There was a pipe organ inside. It was about three stories tall all by itself, and it was suspended from ceiling cables about three stories off the floor. Just one of the side naves would make an impressive cathedral all by itself. There were quite a few old master paintings (my guess was Raphael for at least one), statues all over the place, several impressive tombs of dead bishops, an impressive gilded "box" (for lack of a better word) that could easily be the Ark of the Covenant. They started building the place in the 13th century and finished 638 years later ... now that's job security! I'd say one of the smartest things our Army Air Forces did in World War II was to avoid bombing the Koln Cathedral.

Later, we wandered around the city some more. Europe seems to love the disco era: both Koln and London have live stage versions of Saturday Night Fever going, and you hear Abba (yes, Abba) on the radio a lot. Janis found some more incredibly expensive jewelry, fur, and fashion stores, but somehow I got her out of them without any more damage to the credit card. We found a really super place for dinner, then headed back to Wiesbaden to pack up for the trip to Prague.

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