The City of Cologne

The previous post on the World Cup didn't say much about the city of Cologne (or Köln for you German speakers). Cologne straddles the Rhine river and boasts a lot of river walks, green spaces, and modern buildings. It doesn't have a lot of old buildings, though, as over 90% of the city was destroyed by bombing raids during the Second World War.

It feels a little bit like Evansville, Indiana, in a way. Cologne, too, is a river city with lots of barges going up and down the waters. Cologne, too, seems to have suffered through the loss of the old heavy industries during the 70s and is coming out of an economic funk.And, of course, Cologne has a Cathedral. Every respectable city has to have one. Cologne's is impressive and, in fact, is the largest in Germany. Though started back in the 1200s construction was stopped sometime in 1600s or so. It remained usable, but unfinished, for two hundred years. Then, in the late 1800s an explosion of German pride under the Kaisers spurred the completion of Cologne's cathedral. The cathedral was finished and it's spires, for a time, made it the tallest building in the world. The fact that those spires are still there is a minor miracle. The building took 14 bombs in the same raids that leveled the rest of the city.
Again, there is Strasbourg connection. When the spires of Cologne's cathedral passed the 142 meter mark in 1880 it displaced Strasbourg's cathedral from the position of the tallest in the world.