Where I Manage To Turn A 10 Minute Walk Into An Ordeal – Day 3

The day didn’t have an auspicious start when some interlopers were sitting at “our” table in the dining room. Note: there is no such thing as “our” table, but we like the servers in that part of the room and we just want to sit in the same place every meal. Other people move around. How weird. We somehow managed to deal with the awkwardness of new-to-us servers who couldn’t read our minds and ate breakfast.

The ship made a “technical stop” (meaning – it’s docked but just long enough to drop people off) in Konz (sp?). Everybody on a Cologne excursion got off and boarded buses to take us to Cologne. The ship will meet us in a few hours, docked in the heart of Cologne.

We are in the “Leisure” walking group, which is great. Most of the tour pertained to the cathedral (a/k/a the Dom). Dom constructed started in 1248, but wasn’t finished until the 19th century – there was a period of 300 years where nothing at all happened. We were not allowed to go in during the tour, because it was Sunday and there was a Mass.

Christine our tour guide told us about the shrine in the Dom – traditionally, it holds the skulls of the Three Magi. She also described how the building was bombed during WWII, but due to how the building was built, the basic structure survived the war and was rebuilt.

She pointed out City Hall and mentioned that there was a chocolate museum “not far” – but too far for us to walk. How disappointing!

We walked to a fountain that represented the story of how all work used to be one by elves at night. They were hidden fro view by magic hats that made them invisible. One night, a house wife stayed put to find out what happened, pulled off a hat and revealed the elves! Which pissed them off, and poof! They were gone forever.

Walking back to the dock down a steep cobblestone street, our tour guide told us the name of the location of the dock, so we could repeat it to a rickshaw or cab. She assured us EVERYBODY would know what this meant.

That was pretty much the end of the tour, as we made our way very slowly down a rather steep cobblestone hill to the dock. Susie, Janet, Andy andTom had another tour in the afternoon. My plan was to go back to the cathedral after lunch.

The timing between tours was very tight. They barely get to finish lunch before they had to run back out.

For myself, my challenge was getting back up that cobblestone hill. Front desk guy says he can call a rickshaw (a “pedicab” in NY parlance) for 12 euro. I only have 20 euro, so I don’t have enough to come back by rickshaw. But my plan involved finding an ATM, so it should be ok.

The front desk calls a rickshaw, who comes in about 10 minutes. He’s a chatty fellow, quite happy to take me on a city tour for 22 euro. Yeah, nope. He does point out a few things along the way to the Dom and points to places that should have ATMs.

There was a bit of a line to enter, but it moved quickly. A valid vaccine card and photo ID were needed to enter the church.

The stained glass windows are amazing.

And here is the shrine to the Magi

After I was done with the cathedral, the challenge was getting back to the ship. First, I visitedWent to both ATM locations the rickshaw guy had mentioned, but there were no ATMs. I stumbled across an ATM in a random 3rd place, to discover that I really didn’t know what my PIN was. Next thing to try – hail a cab at the taxi stand. The cabbie took credit cards, so I was good! Tried to hail a cab using the term our tour guide told me earlier, but the cabbie had no idea what I was talking about. I had no cash, and it was a tortuous walk back to the ship.

Or not. I repeated the words our tour guide had told us as to the location of the dock and – the cabbie had no idea what I was talking about.

I needed to find out exactly what words to use to get me back to the ship. I remembered that Andy had the daily newsletter from the ship with phone numbers to call, so I called him. While he looked for that, I called a Viking emergency number, who called the ship and spelled out the words letter by letter. Then Andy texted me the ship’s phone numbers as well.

Tried a second cabbie – I showed him what I had written down. He had no idea – he said that address was on the other side of the river. I knew that was wrong. I told him the dock was right below the cathedral on this side of the river. Nope. No idea.

So I called the ship. I could hear the reception guy rolling his eyes. I handed the phone to the cabbie and the two of them launched into an intense discussion in German. Suddenly, the bulb went off – Yah, yah, alle clar! (“All is clear”). With that, he drove all of 3 minutes max and dropped me off at the top of the pedestrian area just in front of the ship. Success!

I commiserated with the reception guy – neither of us could understand why this had been so hard.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew visited the the Bruhl Palace. Here are some amazing photos: