July 23: Köln Cathedral

On Sunday morning, we left our Air bnb in Koblenz and drove to Köln to visit the Köln Cathedral. We went there because my dad really wanted to see it and I'm glad we did go because it was super cool.

We couldn't go inside the church right away because it was Sunday morning and there was a church service happening. First, we looked around in the gift shop and saw some cool stuff. 

Then, we climbed the spire (one of the towers) of the church. The stair case was a very narrow spiral stone staircase with only railings on the outside so when people were coming down, you had to go to the inside of the stairs and it was scary because the steps were even smaller and there was nothing to hold onto! I felt like I might fall down the stairs backwards. When we thought that we had reached the top, we were only three quarters of the way there. But the final staircase was not as scary because it was pretty wide and there a different staircase for up and for down for that part. My mom did not go up all the way to the top because she is afraid of heights. So, when I came down to the 3/4 mark I ended up going back up again with my mom's phone so that I could take pictures for her because she didn't want to go up. 

When the church service ended, then we went down into the church and IT WAS HUGE!!! 

We walked around the church and there was so much pretty stained glass that we got to see. There were also a couple coffins. Blech. Some of the benches in the church were kneeling benches for people to kneel and pray and some of them were built in the 1600's. I sat on a 400 year old bench and it was actually kind of comfortable! The wood was soft and worn down. 

My favourite part of the cathedral was when I was all the way at the top of the spire and there was an amazing view!!!!! 

After we left the Cathedral, we went out for lunch and then we went out for a walk and we found this water playground area and it was fun. I took off my shoes and socks and rolled up my pants to play in it, but I got my pants a little wet and almost forgot my sweater at the park when we left!

Then we went back to the car and started the long drive home to Amsterdam. I was pretty tired. 

This was in one of the gift shops and it's actually a song composed in the shape of the Köln cathedral. 

 

This was when we had to go inside because it started raning! 

This was outside the front doors!

This was outside our AirBnB

This one is nice!

I'm the highest you can go in one of the spires!

I like the stained glass!

Check out those ceilings!

That is the floor!

We are in front of the Köln Cathedral.