Cologne Cathedral

We visited the cathedral in two stops on November 24.  First we had a quick look during our official walking tour, and then a return later in the afternoon for a closer look and a chance to climb the tower.

Cologne Cathedral had construction started in 1228, but they stopped construction in 1473 long before finishing.  They re-started again in 1840, and it was completed in 1880, to the medieval plan.  Some details like finishing stained-glass windows and ornamentation still gradually continues.

The cathedral is so darn huge, that you can't get a whole photo of it from the grounds around it, without a special lens.  I just had my cellphone camera, so most of my photos are of cathedral bits.

Main entrance:

This is the south tower, that we will climb later in the afternoon:

South side of the cathedral:

South side entrance:

Interior photo.  My cellphone camera takes pretty good pictures, but photoshop helped immensely in lightening them up.

As our first visit was just before Mass, the priest was screening people to make sure they were really there for Mass.   (The tourists weren't discouraged, but were kept out of the pews).

The south side (of the nave?) below.  I can't remember my cathedral vocabulary, although I studied cathedral anatomy in University, in my first year "Art and Architecture" course.  Cologne Cathedral is the second tallest cathedral in Europe.

I think this is a reliquary, which has a very important relic but I forgot what of:

An interior side door:

A decorated column:

The window below shows how some of the stained glass is still being gradually added to:

Around the ambulatory (I just looked that up, it's the round part at the front of the cathedral that surrounds the sanctuary), there were some tombs, here are a couple of them:

I think this is part of the sanctuary, I would have taken the photos through bars, it was closed off to visitors:

I think this decorated ceiling might have been in a little chapel below the main cathedral near the crypts (which were closed), we took some stairs down at some point:

The floors of the cathedral were stunning mosaics in the ambulatory section:

A little side chapel (again, don't know what they are called) off to the side of the main part of the cathedral:

I think this is one of the stations of the cross:

We spent more time than we had thought we would on the main part of the cathedral, as it was so interesting.  Next though, we exited and went to a side door to buy tickets to climb the tower, and afterwards visit the treasury.  Here is the beginning of the stairs.  There were a lot of people climbing up and down, so mostly it was too crowded to take photos on the way up.  Stairs were much roomier than the Basel cathedral, this one is much bigger.

Around 1/3 of the way up or so, we come into a big room that houses the bells:

Around halfway or more up the tower, the stairs come into this large room, which they have added caged stairs to the centre of to continue up the tower.  I think they have done this to keep the traffic one-way from this point forwards:

The large room that contains the caged stairs:

A few photos from the way up:

The lacy turret (correct word?) at the top of the tower:

The viewing gallery surrounds the top of the tower:

Looking southeast-ish, at the Rhine:

Northeast-ish, the train station is below, and the tracks heading over the bridge wind to the right.  Our ship is on the water on the other bank, behind the spire:

Wider view to the southeast:

West, and slightly north:

There were lots of cages to contain the crowds from doing anything stupid, this tower gets heavy visitor traffic.  Here is a glimpse of the north tower through the cage:

Stairs heading back down.  These are narrower so I guess that is why they built the caged stairs for the trip up, so traffic can flow in one direction only:

A couple more exterior photos from back at ground level:

The back of the cathedral:

Our last stop of the day was to visit the treasury below the cathedral.  I didn't take a lot of photos of the artefacts, but it was very interesting, with many beautiful things to look at:

Some of the original (I think) statues of the cathedral, the description is below:

We loved the cathedral, it was very much worth the time we spent there.  Next up, some daytime Rhine cruising in the Netherlands.