Beer in Koln is served a little differently from the rest of Germany, instead of a big mug, they serve the beer in little glasses of 200ml. I really prefer it this way since I don’t drink my beer fast. The beer is kept cold and you get fresh beer frequently, win-win situation!!! And the best part… the moment you sit down, they serve you the beer, cos that’s the only beer and the only size, no time wasted in deciding what beer you want and in what size, its super efficient and I like it. The beer is called Kolsch and its only served in that region, or made there I think. In any case, we both enjoyed it a lot. The food was also pretty good and cheap, we ate lots of schnitzels, sausages and pork knuckles. M had told me about the currywurst before I went and though it sounds really strange (sausages smothered in ketchup topped with curry powder anyone?), it tasted oh so good. Super fattening food but we couldn’t stop eating it. It’s like the ultimate street food.
And since we are on the topic of food, we visited a chocolate museum in Koln as part of our trip, the Chocolate Museum. The museum is also known as the Lindt Chocolate museum and for a while, we were wondering why a Swiss company had a chocolate museum in Germany and if in fact, Lindt is actually German and not Swiss. Well, luckily, we are not that ignorant, Lindt is actually Swiss, the thing is, Koln had a chocolate museum for a long time and Lindt then decided to sponsor the museum, thus the name. The museum itself was fairly educational, it covers quite a bit of history about how cocoa was discovered, how its harvested, how the world reacted to its discovery etc. They even had an area set up as a rainforest so visitors can experience what its like in a rainforest environment. I was missing the heat of Singapore since it was still freezing in April so we went in there, however it was so so humid it was difficult to breathe so we only stayed for a very short while.
One of the more fascinating sections was the one where you can see how the actual production of chocolate is like in a factory environment. It ain’t no Willy Wonka and there were no Oompa Loompas, instead we had a few grumpy German ladies working there as part of the demonstration. Nevertheless, it was still fun to see how the little chocolate bars were being made. I found it quite remarkable that they actually bothered to put in that in the museum. I also quite enjoyed the section showing the old advertisements selling chocolate.
Now that we’re done with the food, let’s talk about the other places we visited, namely the Kolner Dom, Museum Ludwig and Wallraf-Richartz Museum.
The Kolner Dom is the largest Gothic cathedral in Germany and we managed to get a guided tour of the cathedral with a very bubbly German lady as our guide. I actually can’t remember much of what she told us but I do remember that the tour was good, so that counts for something I guess. We were also able to get up close to the Shrine of the Three Magi and we learnt that though we normally think that three kings paid a visit to Jesus when he was born, the bible actually doesn’t say that there were three kings, it only states that the kings brought gold, frankincense and myrrh. Since three gifts are mentioned, people just assumed there were three kings. We also wanted to climb up the tower but didn’t do so due to bad weather.
As for the two museums we visited, I really enjoyed the Wallraf-Richartz Museum. They had a special exhibition on Corbet which was designed by Christian Lacroix. Corbet was one of the renowned classical artists of his time, but he is kinda forgotten now and some would say he fell out of fashion. I must say I really enjoyed his paintings and I would say his works are pretty good. The museum also gives a really good overview of the evolution of art through the ages, you do need to be patient and read through everything though. It’s kind of like a Art History 101 lesson.
We didn’t really have a lot of time in Museum Ludwig but I did like the exhibitions on Pop Art. The Portable War Memorial was interesting and I got frightened by the woman figurine. CS had pointed out the fake woman and told me it was a figurine but I didn’t believe him, but when I found out I thought it was quite freaky. The artist’s idea of art was to make strikingly realistic human models and place them inconspicuously and get a reaction from the viewer, which he certainly got from me.
We also did a little shopping in Koln, and since it is the birthplace of the original eau de cologne, you can guess what we bought! I must say I don’t like the scent of the original, I prefer the new scents they came up with. It was quite weird that they had a tap in the shop which had a continuous stream of the original eau de cologne though.
All in all, we both really enjoyed our stay in Koln. With good food at reasonable prices, fresh beer and some interesting sight, what more can you ask for. Most importantly, its not overrun by tourists yet. Definitely a place to visit.
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