Köln or Cologne?

We say Köln now that we are in Germany, but even people who live here say Cologne. I guess it is an honor to this city's long history, dating back to the Romans in 50 AD. But maybe we should say, Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium instead?

Köln is only about a 30 minute train ride from Bonn, or 64 minutes by local train, as we found out last week (all part of the adventure kids). It is Germany's 4th largest city and it is where we decided to go last weekend.

We had planned to go to the zoo, but we were stopped by the rain, so we quickly changed gears and made our trip a historical one. Köln is home to northern Europe’s oldest cathedral. It is hard to miss when you arrive in the city, with spires jutting 600 feet into the sky.

I was worried that visiting a church would not appeal to the kids, nor suffice as a replacement for the zoo, but I was dead wrong. The kids at that point were happy to get inside out of the rain, and a huge, old cathedral was a mighty nice diversion.

Giving them free reign of the camera inspired them both to discover interesting details that we might have otherwise missed. Noah in particular loves finding secret doorways, and this curiosity led us to find the staircase to the upper towers.

Ok, it was not so secret, but we would have otherwise missed the best part of our day if Noah had not been seeking out secret passageways. Love the 9 year old sense of what is important, medieval weaponry, escape routes and war strategies (his favorite word right now is portcullis).

Amazingly the kids were totally game to climb the 533 steps to the top of the tower. I am sometimes taken off guard by their enthusiasm, in a very good way.

We climbed a very narrow spiral staircase for what seemed like an eternity. There were no points to stop and take a break until we got to the top, and we had to share the narrow space with the folks on their way down. The air quickly got thick with people smells in that tight space, much to Louise's dismay, but eventually we came to a doorway and we had to explore.

This was the bell tower with its eight massive bells, overseen by a benevolent guard who offered to take our photo. We decided his role was to close off this part of the tower when the bells were going to ring, and protect tourists and their delicate ears.

We still had a few more stairs to climb before we came to the top of the tower, so up we went. When we got to the top we were rewarded with a panoramic view of this ancient city, the Rhein river and beyond. The cool, fresh air on our faces brought everyone joy to be so high and free and alive.

When we came down to earth again we all decided that the this had been better than going to the zoo, which we could visit on another trip to the ancient city of Koln.