Around the World: Part Twelve

To the Witness of the World War II

11.05.2019: Tour Day 5, Country 5, City 1

Cologne Cathedral

It is a tall, twin spired, Catholic Cathedral in Cologne, North Rhine - Westphalia, Germany. It is a renowned monument of Gothic Architecture. A cathedral is a church that contains the cathedra (a seat of the bishop). Here is the seat of the Archbishop of Cologne. The cathedral was badly damaged during the World War II. Nevertheless, it still stood erect and witnessed the bombardment of its surrounding and unwillingly became a navigational landmark for the Allied Aircraft Bombing.

Done with the photography, we proceeded towards the Paid Toilets. At the entrance, you must insert a euro coin, and then pass through the metal barrier. Further the toilet seems to be as any normal toilet. But the flushing techniques varied from city to city. Here, I could not find any flush button, not even the pulling string. I thought let’s go out and ask someone. The moment I opened the latch, there was an automatic flush. Then the wash basin area had sensors in ascending order of Soap-Water-Dryer. First you just need to place your palms under the Soap sensor, a definite amount of soap will fall on your palms. Then put your palms below the Water sensor to wash them. And further dry them under the dryer. So, there is neither wastage of soap nor of the water. Also, there is no need of the tissues.

We left Cologne by late evening and headed towards Hotel NH, Heidelberg, Germany. It was already dark by the time we reached the hotel. Here we were desperate to fall on our beds, and our coach captain was struggling to park the bus. Somehow, he managed to park the bus, accidentally breaking the headlights of a car in this attempt. We walked through an elevation to reach the reception area. Here we got our keys and packed dinner: it consisted of rice, dal, mutter sabzi and apple. We walked downstairs towards our rooms. This night I was a bit nervous for my room was at the extreme end of the corridor. While I had always put on the television to watch the local channels at our previous stays, here I was too silent to exist in the room. I finished the dinner and slipped into the bed praying for the sunrise.

The morning view from my window was not a sunrise but green landscapes stretched across. We were in the country-side in southwest Germany. I went upstairs and had breakfast with Kiran. It was very cold out there; still we managed to click photos near the entrance stairs. We checked out and loaded the luggage into our bus and headed towards our next destination.

Read next: Around the World: Part Thirteen