Everytime I´m in the Bonn/Cologne Region, I try to get to Cologne to walk around the downtown area with its difficult to define aura. Heavily destroyed during the bomb raids of WW II, hastily rebuilt after the war to produce housing space and space for everything else for that matter, it´s look nowadays has a typical postwar charm of a neon-lit, tiled public bathroom. The great architectural and urban planning crimes of the 60s, 70s and 80s didn´t exactly ease things. So why come here at all? Because a small rest of charme has somehow survived and present day city planners are coming up with new, innovative and humorous ideas. But next to discovering the latest tricks and schemes of hip urbanism, there is always the old and tried, buildings and institutions that have stood the test of time, like the Cologne Cathedral. Tested it was indeed: struck by allied bombs 70 times it refused to budge, intent on eternal divine service. Always impressive, the towering gothic realization captures one in its spell when standing in front of it, literally jaw dropping and tiliting your head in the back while trying to fathom what made masons so high-flying and aspiring. Construction began in 1248 (gothic), and ended in 1880 (neo-gothic). There was a hiatus of almost 300 years due to changed aesthetical perceptions in the course of time and funding problems, caused by the aftermath of the Lutheran Reformation. When the twin spires of the south towers were completed, the Cathedral was the highest building in the world, only to be surpassed by the Washington Monument four years later.

One of many attractions of the Cathedral is the Shrine of the

Three Kings, believed to hold the remains

of the Three Wise Men.

Another is the 24-ton Bell Of St. Peter, the biggest free-swinging bell in the world,

chiming only on special occasions.

South entrance roof

Old and new figures.

Stonemasons have also immortalized figures of Nikita Khrushchev, John F. Kennedy and

Charles de Gaulle along the facade.

The job of the stonemasons of the Dombauhütte is a never-ending story.

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