March 31...must be Cologne

The River Empress - my home on the Rhine

...and our first real rain of the trip.  According to our cruise director Rik, we have been blessed with fine weather as in the Netherlands it is usually two days of rain to one day of sunshine.

So rain cape on and umbrella up I headed out on the walking tour of Cologne.  Up and down alleys and sidestreets, past an archaelogical dig in the middle of the city, to the Cathedral and Roman-Germanic Museum.  The museum is built on the walls of a Roman villa found in 1941 and contains the famous Dionysos mosaic - the floor intact where it was found with the museum built around it.  The museum also has a huge collection of artifacts from pre-historic to the middle-ages, including to world's largest collection of Roman glass vessels.  There were some really beautiful glass pieces with fine filligree like glass embellishments - incredible! After that overview, we were left on our own to explore.
Photo - archeological dig in Cologne - it seems they keep finding roman ruins whenever they start a new building project in certain areas of the city.

The rain was letting up so I headed over to the Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral) - a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It is the largest cathedral in Germany and took 632 years to complete. In 1248 it was first started then halted due to wars/economics until 1842 when construction resumed until completion in 1880. It features some beautiful detailed stained glass windows and in the cathedral is a golden crypt said to contain the relics and remains of the Magi (Three Wise Men),
The Cathedral also managed to escape unharmed the ravages of WWII.  There is a story, urban legend or truth, that in the final days of the war, passing troops tossed seven grenades at the Cathedral and not one exploded...protection from a higher power?

I hopped the little tourist tram back to our docking...actually it's closet stop to the ship just happened to be at the Chocolate Museum (Lindt Chocolates).  Just missed the final tour of the day but, with the heavenly scent of chocolate permeating the air, I settled for a half hour in the chocolate shop....Yummy. Looked like 1000's of different flavors of truffles, shapes of chocolate for every occasion. You could just feel the pounds packing onto your hips just breathing the air in there.  I practiced extreme control - one small bag of truffles for me, and two host gifts for planned family visits in Germany.
Once back onboard, the Captain annouced we had to leave at 7 pm (about four hours ahead of schedule) due to one of the engines needing repairs.  The ship would be operating on the one remaining engine until the repairs were finished (hopefully by the next day).  In order to be able to do the Castles cruising in the morning we had to leave right away.  Amazingly enough, as were were about to pull the gangway two passengers just made it on and as we were about to pull away the final two remaining passengers got a cable basket lift on board (or so I was told by the two ladies who barely made it on as the gangway was being lifted).  At least no one was left wondering where the boat was when they got back to the dock that night.  By the way, they did have a Plan B to deal with any passengers left stranded by the early departure but didn't need to put it to work.