Another (The) Hague trip... but first, Köln (Cologne for y'all Yanks!)

So... as I've mentioned in past entries, the wife's assignment here includes duties for (and occasional trips to) The Hague. This time, we drove there, and added a couple of days on the front end to visit Köln, which you might know as "Cologne" - that's the English name for it.

Cologne is only a couple of hours away, so we drove up in the early afternoon, in time to get checked in and start thinking about dinner. We stayed in the Marriott, right in the city center, so just about everything was within a walkable distance. In accordance with past trips, first order of business was to find a halfway decent barbecue restaurant, and we did. It was a bit of a hike, and turned out to be a "BBQ Deli," meaning that it wasn't really a full restaurant, just counter service with a couple of stand up tables. We each had baked potatoes stuffed with pulled barbecue - I had pork, and the boss had beef. Pulled beef? Yep. Dunno - she picked it. It was halfway decent. If we want to try again, we'll go to the real restaurant that's associated with the deli, but it wasn't within walking distance, so we'll have to drive to it. It was halfway decent, but not bad overall for Europe.

The next day, we'd signed up for another of the "free walking tours," given by the same company we used in Berlin, "Can You Handle It Tours," another of the "Rude Bastard" walking tours. The guide who gave the tour was an American (from Michigan, if that matters), and she was nowhere near as "rude" (playful and profane) as Arthur in Berlin. She only "cursed" once, and that was when she was telling us about the name of a specific landmark in one of the squares (and here, I'd like to apologize for my language - I usually try to keep my posts rated around E10... this might kick it into T territory!): The Gutter Shitter (Kallendresser in German - I'll use that term from here on out).

There are several legends associated with this figure, but its (original) origin is a mystery. The original figure no longer exists, but was such a well known figure in the square that it was quickly replaced when it fell. One of the more intriguing legends has to do with the attitude of the townspeople toward the city government in the past, as the square that the figure is on also is home to the town hall.

Interestingly enough, on the clock tower attached to the town hall is a face (called the Platzjabbeck) who, every hour (with the chiming of the bells) opens his mouth and wags his tongue in the direction of the Kallendresser.

On our tour, Emily walked us past the original merchant for "Eau de Cologne," dating back to 1709. Of course, after our tour, we had to go back there. When writing these posts, I try to do additional research to make sure I'm not blindly passing along bad information... buckle up. If I've gotta learn about eau de Cologne, y'all do too. I'll put it in blue, so you can just skip it if you don't care.

"Perfume" is basically fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds mixed with fixatives and solvents. Perfumes have different descriptive names, based on the dilution of the aromatics. In ascending order of dilution (so, strongest first) they are: parfum (or extrait) > esprit de parfum > eau de parfum (or parfum de toilette) > eau de toilette > eau de Cologne > eau fraîche.

Having said all that, the original eau de Cologne has a light citrussy scent. I guess I could have saved all of us a bunch of time by just saying that and moving on, right?

While wandering around town, we had lunch in a (modernized) old restaurant. The first mention of the address of this restaurant dates back to 1163, but the foundation dates back to the Roman settlement in Cologne. The building has been owned by the same family since the 1920's, but was heavily bombed during the war. Members of the family sheltered deep in the basement during the bombing, and were buried when the building collapsed. The family patriarch threw a coin into the well in the basement and wished that his family would be okay; a few days later, his family was discovered weakened, but unharmed. You can still see the well in the basement of the building. Neat building, good food, good beer.

Speaking of beer... the people of Cologne are quite proud of their beer, a specific variety called Kölsch. That specific name is "geographically protected" in the EU, so any Kölsch sold in the EU have to come from within 31 miles of the cathedral in Cologne. Kolsch beers are brewed in other countries, so if you've had a Kolsch in the US, you're familiar with the style. One thing that's different in Cologne though, is the serving style. The beer is not very carbonated, so it's served in smaller glasses that are tall and narrow, holding around 7 ounces per serving. The server (called a Köbes) carries around a "kranz" (crown or wreath) and drops off a new glass to replace empties, marking a tick mark onto one of the coasters on your table (to keep track of how many beers you've been served). To keep from getting another beer dropped off, you put a coaster on top of your beer... at least, that's the way it's supposed to work. I couldn't figure out how to do it when you're sitting outside on a breezy afternoon. I just had to keep putting my hand on top of my empty glass. Sorry for the stock image, but couldn't see the scale of the kranz in the wife's pic.

After we ate, we wandered our way down to the Chocolate Museum. We were thinking about it, and our worldwide chocolate museum count is up to four, I think. I was pretty impressed by this one. It covered the whole process, and delved into some of the prehistorical aspects of chocolate in the different cultures as well. Pretty impressive. The museum is affiliated with Lindt, but chocolates from other companies were represented as well. Overall, very well done.

Afterward, we stopped in the little café in the lobby, and the boss had some fondue, dipping random fruits and baked goods in two types of chocolate.

We'd seen lots of people throughout town wearing t-shirts from the band Kiss, and that evening I happened to strike up a conversation with a gentleman in the lounge who claimed to be their pilot on their current world tour - they were playing that night at the arena in town. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of his stories, but also no proof that he was actually their pilot. Either way, good conversation for a while.

Next day, we had a tour of the cathedral scheduled in the afternoon, so we were looking for something to do in the late morning. I saw something online about a mustard museum (and y'all know how much I love weird museums), so I looked up where it was, and we took off walking. Turns out, it was literally across the street from the chocolate museum. D'oh!

On the way there, the boss wanted to find a specific store that we'd walked by on our tour the day before that sold... wait for it.... watercolors. We retraced our tour route and eventually found it. She found one that she liked, so we got that and kept moving across town. 

Turns out, the mustard museum was just a store with a little bit of historical stuff in a little alcove. We tried a couple of the mustards and bought a couple of crocks, then headed back to the room to drop off our stuff before the cathedral tour.

A few quick facts about the cathedral: at 157 meters (515 Freedom Units), it's the tallest twin spire church in the world, the second tallest church in Europe, and the third tallest church (of any kind) in the world. From 1880 to 1884, it was the tallest building in the world, at which point it was surpassed by the Washington Monument.

You can see Emily, our tour guide the previous day, there in the foreground. In front of the church, you can see a parade float, with a sign to its immediate right. Protesters were demonstrating against the Catholic Church and the German Cardinal of the Catholic Church. This was just the best pic I had of the front of it. We'll just move on.

Construction on the church started in 1248, but it wasn't completed until 1880, due in large part to pausing construction for 274 years (from 1540 to 1814) when they ran out of money. 

One of the main reasons for this grandiose cathedral is that it houses a reliquary containing the relics of the Three Magi. I'm not going to try to trace the provenance of these relics, just going to say that the reliquary itself is quite impressive. It's a massive box, about 3 1/2 feet wide, 5 feet high, and a little over 7 feet long - the largest reliquary in the western world.

(Best pic I could find, not mine.... by Arminia - File:Dreikönigsschrein im Dom1.JPG, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2237541)

Christian buildings occupied the site where the cathedral stands, all the way back to the 4th century. The current building was completed in several phases (due to the aforementioned lack of money), and is the largest gothic church in northern Europe. One of the striking features of the cathedral is the extensive use of flying buttresses, which mean that the walls don't have to be as substantial as you'd expect for a building this size. As a result, the windows they were able to install make the inside of the church much brighter than you'd expect:

Let's talk for a moment about the windows, and the war.

During the war, Cologne was an important target for the allies. 262 separate raids bombed Cologne, including the first ever "Thousand Bomber Raid," when the RAF sent 1,047 bombers to attack the city in a 90 minute period.

In total, over 77,000,000 pounds of bombs were dropped on Cologne in the war. Here's a picture of the city taken in 1945, after the war:

Absolute desolation. Except for a handful of buildings. Including that magnificent cathedral.

The cathedral suffered collateral hits by 14 bombs. The cathedral itself wasn't targeted in the raids - not out of the kindness of the Allies' hearts; it was the most recognizable building in that part of Germany, and was used as a navigation waypoint.

All those gorgeous windows? The panes were individually removed and stored at remote locations for safety, then reinstalled after the war.

Dinner (& beer!) on our last night in town was at a place that claims to be one of the oldest in the city, dating back to 1318. The brauhaus was destroyed in the war, and I wasn't able to find any documentation about its true age, but the site for the brauhaus itself and our tour guide both made that claim, so.... we'll just go with it for the purposes of this blog entry.

So next day, we got up and hit the road for The Hague. We rolled in early afternoon, and since we were so early, we headed straight to the beach, to have an early dinner and walk on the boardwalk. We went to one of the restaurants lining the sand and had a couple of drinks as well.

The next day, the weather sucked. According to some of the locals the wife talked to, they hadn't had a storm like that in years. I didn't leave the room all day. Once the wife got home, we took a tram to the main shopping district and tried to get into a wing restaurant that I'd seen online, but they weren't accepting walk-ins for some reason. We ended up wandering around looking for a place to eat, and found our way back to the food hall that we'd discovered in a previous trip. I had wings, and the wife got "nachos," which appeared to be more of a bowl of chips with a bunch of random stuff piled on. We wandered for a little while longer, but all the stores were closed, so we took the tram back to the hotel.

I hung out in the room most of the next day as well, we took the tram back over to the shopping area after the boss got off work. We wandered around, stopped in our normal cheese shop, and ate at a tapas restaurant for dinner. I've never had tapas before, I enjoyed it.

The following day, I wandered around the neighborhood that the hotel was in - we've stayed in that hotel before, but have only explored in one direction. I headed in the other direction, and happened to encounter the restaurant that we had reservations in for that night, simply by luck. I was looking for a grocery store, and the restaurant happened to be across the street.

Dinner was at an Italian restaurant that her coworkers had recommended - I'd made the reservation earlier in the week. We had olives, bruschetta, and shared a pizza. Pretty good - not Italy good, but pretty good nonetheless. They had a wood fired oven right inside the door - that's not something you see everywhere you go.

The following day, we had an entire day to do a 4 hour drive, so we decided to break it up, and stopped in Gouda to do some touristy stuff. We found parking in a very conveniently located garage, and walked back to the Gouda Cheese Experience, where we had purchased tickets for a tour.

The (let's call it) "museum" was surprisingly well done! When we checked in for our tour, we were given a clipboard with a sheet full of trivia questions and an audio player. There were a few different movies that we got to watch (and listen to in English with our audio players), interactive experiences... I need to break off and tell you about this thing.

They had a cow set up with some sort of computer system in its udders with targeting screens in the buckets that showed how good your aim would be while milking a cow. That was right next to the display where you could press a button to smell what a pasture smells like, so perhaps they were trying to stifle competition in the cow farming business... not sure. 

We had to answer the trivia questions using information that we learned during the tour, and find 6 rubber stamps throughout the exhibits to stamp our trivia sheet. After the tasting at the end of the tour, we turned in our trivia sheet to be scored - amazingly, we got 100% - and were awarded green and yellow pins that say "I'm a cheese master!"

After we gave them some more money for cheese and cheese accessories, we dropped off the goodies in the car and decided to wander the town for a little while. One of the sights that the wife had read about was the weighing house, where the wheels of cheese were weighed. We didn't make it into the weighing house though, because we encountered a market instead. We ended up wandering around the city for a little over an hour exploring the extensive booths and little alcoves in the city. 

Here's their city hall, with some sort of display about cheese underneath:

And here's the weighing house, that they've turned into a little museum:

One of the things that the wife has fallen in love with over here (other than Westerwald Pottery, Delft Pottery, and watercolors) are stroopwaffel. It's effectively two very thin waffle cookies with a layer of caramel of some sort in between. The first time we went to The Hague, she bought a freshly made one when we went to the beach, and I occasionally still hear about that particular one. Well, in our wandering around Gouda, we encountered a market that just sold stroopwaffels. They were in vending machines. You went up to a computerized kiosk and selected what you wanted and paid, then the locker containing your purchase popped open for you to access.

After we finished up in Gouda, we headed home, uneventfully.

Two last things: 

In Dutch, they don't have the sound we use for the letter "G." So when you're saying "Gouda" in your head (while reading this), that's not the way that they say it. They actually say "How-duh," but with a little crunch before the "H," almost like the true pronunciation of "Hanukkah." There's your little bit of trivia.

Final thing. Walking around the town of Gouda, we encountered the following vehicle, and I just couldn't believe the web site address:

I don't know what kind of business it is, but they're probably paying a fortune for the graphics on their vans! 

That's all for now, I'll post again when we do something else exciting!