Cologne & Aachen

In 2014, Wendy and I took a trip to Germany.  Wendy was born in the southwestern corner of Germany in a town called Freiburg im Breisgau (we will cover that in another post), and my ancestors immigrated from Germany in the early 18th Century.  We started our trip on the western border of Germany in the city of Cologne (Köln).  Located on the Rhine River, Cologne is a major city of more than a million people that is overflowing with history.  The first thing you notice when you walk out of the city's centrally located train station is the enormous Köln Cathedral that is literally a hundred feet in front of you.  This Gothic church was started in the 13th Century and not completed until the 19th Century, a running theme with many of the great cathedrals of Europe.  The two spires are so tall my first thought was to wonder how someone could build them today let alone two centuries ago.  Badly damaged during World War II, it has since been restored to an amazing site.  Like most Gothic cathedrals the exterior is intricately designed and carved with amazing detail.  Each one of the buttresses supporting the exterior has their own spires or pinnacles that add to the elaborate detail of the site.  When you go inside see the Shrine of the Three Kings, the reliquary that supposedly holds the bones of the three wise men from the birth of Jesus.  The church also contains what is known as the Gero Cross, the oldest wooden cross still in existence in the world, constructed in 965 AD.

Another less visited site in Cologne is St. Gereon's Bascilica.  A short walk up Gereonstraße from Köln Cathedral, St. Gereon's has existed for nearly fourteen centuries with the current building having been built in the 12th Century.  When we arrived we were greeted warmly by some older residents who were praying and invited us in to look around.  Next door to the church is a unique park that has a massive stone carving of the head of St. Gereon, who was supposedly beheaded for his faith in the 4th Century.

 

After spending a few days in Cologne we traveled by train to Aachen, located just a few miles from the French border.  Aachen was once the seat of power for the great Holy Roman Empire ruled by Charlemagne.  Largely destroyed during the Battle of Aachen in World War II, the city has been rebuilt to match the classic architectural style of the region.  The Aachen Cathedral, located in the center of the old town, is the oldest cathedral in northern Europe, and was the site of the coronation of German royalty for centuries.  The cathedral contains the throne of Charlemagne, a very sturdy stone throne that is quite different from the elaborately ornate thrones that would seat kings in the Renaissance.  The day we visited turned out to be a true blessing for us.  We happened to arrive on the final day of the Heiligtumsfahrt, a pilgrimage to the Aachen Cathedral that had been occurring once every seven years for more than six centuries.  The church was displaying their relics of Mary's robe from Jesus's birth, the swaddling clothes of Christ, the cloth they kept John the Baptist's head in following his death, and the loin cloth Jesus wore on the cross.  I am a proud Christian, but I am also a realist.  The likelihood these items are what they claim to be is small, but if it inspires faith in those who come in contact with them then I support them completely.  There were thousands in Aachen that day to see the relics, but the procession through the church was well-managed and they even offered blessings where a priest would bless any item and touch the relic with it.  When you are finished in the cathedral step next door to the museum which contains the bones of Charlemagne. 

While you are there take a trip to Vaalserberg, the tripoint (Dreiländereck) where Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands meet in the forest about two miles outside of Aachen.  You have to take the bus from Aachen to Vaals, a small town on the border in the Netherlands.  From there you take a scenic walk through the woods to the top of the hill at the top of the region.  Once at the top you will see the marker showing the point were all three nations meet.  There are some sites up there including a restaurant, a viewing tower, and some historical markers, but you can roam around for free as long as you want.  We took a two hour hike in Belgium and enjoyed the countryside before returning back.  I would recommend wearing appropriate shoes for this.  While the top is well maintained, the trails to get to the top are nothing but dirt trails.  

One a side note, and I hope it is still there if you ever visit, we enjoyed going to eat lunch in the city square of the altstadt (old town) of Aachen.  We were really entertained to find a Tex-Mex restaurant called Sausalito's.  This restaurant is what occurs when you try to take a restaurant from one culture, pass it through another culture, then transplant it across the ocean away from anyone who knows what that food should taste like.  The food was very entertaining, and while not quite right it was a fun place to eat something the people of Aachen and the tourists from around the world seemed to think was amazing.