Koln (Cologne)

Built between 1248 and 1880, Koln Cathedral is Germany's most-visited tourist destination, with 20,000 people visiting daily (on average). The spires are even taller than they look here, at 157 metres, making them the second tallest in the world. They also made Koln Cathedral briefly the tallest building in the world, from 1880 to 1884. Interestingly for Americans, the Washington Monument was the building which surpassed it, not the Eiffel Tower. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_struc... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_Cathedral

This shot came out better than I was expecting. I bumped the contrast up by 10% in Gimp, and removed some dust, but ultimately that's all I had to do to it. The thumbnail actually made it look worse. This might be my best photo of Koln Hbf, at least at night.

These are the spires of Koln, or Cologne, Cathedral, which were what made it the largest building in the world. The Washington Monument surpassed it, and today it can only claim to be the world's second-largest church, after the Ulm Minster, which is 161.5 metres tall as opposed to the Koln Cathedral's 157 metres.

Here's a side view of the Cathedral.

This jewellery store was entirely covered in what looked like Christmas lights. This might be the usual lighting, but I doubt it because of the costs and maintenance involved. It was still less than two weeks after New Year's, so I figured they still hadn't taken down the Christmas decorations yet.

This is Hohestrasse, or literally "High Street" in Koln, which by the time I took this photo had mostly been closed for the night. I walked along it anyway, though, as I had nothing better to do. I had to catch the sleeper train for Prague later in the night.

Jumping ahead a few days to my long-distance train trip back to Prague, I had a layover in Koln, and went for a walk near the station. This is the St. Gereon church, which admittedly I know very little about.

This was one of the side streets near the St. Gereon church. It was unclear whether it was really worn, or scraped clean awaiting repaving, but you could see the cobblestones underneath the blacktop.

This was my train after it arrived in Koln the next morning, before the summer came up. This is one of the "CityNightLine" series of sleepers, in this case a 2nd Class Couchette like the one I rode (I don't remember if this was it).