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With exams over and my visa to travel outside the country expired, it was time to explore more of Germany before heading home in a few weeks.
My friend, Lizzie, one of the first friends I made in Munich, was planning a “Tour de Germany,” wherein she was to be spending about 10 days traveling from city to city on Germany’s excellent transportation system. She was kind enough to let me join her for the first part of her trip to Cologne before heading off on her own.
We woke early on July 21st to catch out ICE train from the Munich Hauptbahnhof to Cologne. ICE trains are Germany’s high speed trains which go all around the country. While we could have gotten to Cologne for free on our monthly subscription Deutschland Ticket passes, we decided to spring the extra cost for an ICE train to turn a 10 hour ride into a smooth 4 hours.
Luckily, I was able to make it onto this early morning train without any issues (see my blog post on Prague for context). We enjoyed a leisurely ride through the German countryside, trading Bavaria’s lush green farmland and the Alps for the more flat and grey settings of northern Germany. We were also able to see the skylines and train stations of some of Germany’s other well known cities, like Frankfurt, from the comfort and safety of our train car.
We arrived in Cologne a few hours and a nap later and took the metro to our hostel to drop our luggage off before exploring for the day. Wow, what a culture shock. Comparing Munich to Cologne is like comparing heaven to a much dirtier, scary, and not so safe heaven. While I did not necessarily feel unsafe or scared in Cologne, the street life and scenes on the metro definitely made me realize how spoiled we are in Munich.
I did appreciate the colorful graffiti and street art of Cologne as we walked around. It made the city feel more lively and while Munich is bigger in population, it can be a little quiet and monochromatic. However, I’ve never felt like I needed to immediately take a shower after riding the U-Bahn in Munich but left Cologne’s feeling grimy and gross. Oh well, it just added to the real city feel and luckily there was a light mist raining down our whole trip which washed off whatever I had picked up on the metro as soon as I got off.
After dropping our stuff off at our hostel, we started to explore the city. We each had a list of a few museums we wanted to visit, and started at the Farina House, or Cologne Perfume Museum. As you might imagine, the style of perfume for men which we call “cologne” was invented here in, you guessed it, Cologne. While Cologne is the French spelling of the German city of “Köln,” the iconic perfume was invented here in Germany before joining the ranks of other French perfumes, like eau de parfum, eau de toilette, and now, eau de cologne.
The Farina House claims to have been the inventors of eau de cologne, and while they compete for the title with one other house in Cologne, I think Farina makes the most compelling argument. We arrived at the house, which is half museum and half gift shop, but were told they were unfortunately sold out of museum tour tickets for the day. We opted to wander the gift shop for a little bit, smelling the variety of perfumes they sell, including the original invented scent as well as a collection according to one’s Zodiac sign, before heading out to find a museum with available tickets.
Luckily for us, as we were walking out of the museum, a worker ran out after us and said two people had failed to show up for their tour time if we wanted to join! We happily agreed at this stroke of luck (especially as Lizzie and I have not had the most luck filled time abroad) and joined the next tour.
A guide first gave our tour group a short history lecture on the invention of cologne here in the house. Then we explored the rooms of the house which were filled with artifacts from the perfume’s invention in 1709. There was also an interactive activity where we got to smell the individual components of common ingredients for cologne.
We left thinking our 10€ museum tickets were a fine price for the hour long tour which was both informative and interactive, but the best part was yet to come at the end of the tour. Each tour participant received a little bottle of the original cologne scent for free! Since buying one of these bottles directly from the museum gift shop would cost you 9€ alone, we definitely thought this 10€ tour was worth the price. The original eau de cologne scent is very light, filled with fresh green and lemongrass scents, perfect for spring.
Our next stop was the Lindt Chocolate Museum. I’m still not sure what Lindt’s connection to Cologne is, since it’s a Swiss brand, but we weren’t going to say no to chocolate. While a bit more expensive than the perfume museum ticket, it did come with ample amounts of free chocolate as well. It was very informative, taking us through all the steps of the cocoa growing to chocolate making process, and was interactive as well. There is one room which participants line up and push a button for a free chocolate piece. To our luck again, the machine malfunctioned and gave us an extra piece to split!
After the chocolate museum, we decided to walk around the city before it got too dark. We walked to the iconic Cologne Cathedral, of course, but did not go inside yet. It truly was breath taking and insane to see all the intricate detail they were able to build into it all those years ago. We chose to get pizza before trying to go to a jazz bar I had found. Unfortunately, the jazz bar was cash only but we had foolishly left all our cash at the hostel and were too tired from a long day of travel to go all the way to get it and come back. Luckily, I had enjoyed a Kölsh beer with my pizza. Kölsh is the local beer of North Rhine-Westphalia, the German state Cologne is in, and is know for the tall, narrow, test tube like classes it comes in. Quite the contrary to the giant glass, mug like Maß that Bavarian beer comes in.
The next day we enjoyed breakfast at our hostel before heading out to tackle the 533 steps up the Cologne Cathedral. We got a timed tickets, since there is so much demand, and were able to secure a student discount, reducing the price by half for us. We had picked the better day to do it as well, the sun was starting to peak through the grey, overcast clouds.
The journey up the tower is strenuous, very steep small steps in an extremely narrow hallway with traffic going both ways is not the ideal scenario for those with even the slightest case of claustrophobia (me). But alas, we made it and enjoyed incredibly stunning views of the city and the Rhine river below. Being that high up too, you can truly appreciate the detail which went into the creation of such a wonder.
I can’t say the interior of the cathedral measure up to the grandeur of its exterior, but we still enjoyed exploring the stained glass covered walls of the inner sanctuary. There were incredible mosaics on the floor as well. One of the most interesting parts of the cathedral is its proximity to the Cologne Hauptbahnhof (main train station). The cathedral is simply right there outside the Hauptbahnhof. You exit and boom, there it is.
Lizzie obliged me to partake in some of Cologne’s shopping scene. we made a stop at Birkenstock, the iconic German shoe store, before heading to Uniqlo, one of my favorites. I dropped a pretty penny there since there isn’t one in Munich and they are hard to find in the U.S. We also stopped by a cute local jewelry and coffee shop, where I picked out some earrings to remember my time.
Our last stop was the National Socialism Documentation Center of the City of Cologne, a museum dedicated to the victims of the Third Reich during World War II as the museum is located in the former headquarters of the Gestapo. It was a very interesting museum, located in a residential neighborhood which is remarkably unremarkable if you were not aware of the existence of such a building.
After, we headed to the Hauptbahnhof where I wished Lizzie well on her continuance of her Tour de Germany and headed back to Munich myself. I did enjoy Cologne as a city and it was nice to see Germany outside of Munich and Bavaria. However, I think our little two day city-break was the perfect amount of time to spend in Cologne and I think it was a good stepping stone before I jump into Berlin someday.
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