July 05 - Cologne

 July 05 - Cologne

We were out for a day of culture today and our first visit was to the Wallraf-Richartz museum. Although relatively small it makes the most of what it has by the excellent way the artwork is presented. It was fantastic.  Even though it has fewer masterpieces than some of the other great museums it can still claim paintings by Van Gogh, Monet, Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt, amongst others, in its collection. 

Our second ‘cultural exploration’ of the day was to the Lindt chocolate museum.  Although not over-whelming the self-guided tour of the history of cacao, and its role in the global economy, was quite interesting.  The tour of the manufacturing process wasn’t bad either, especially when the freebies became available! 🍫

Our next visit was to the German-Roman Museum, home to the famous Dionysius mosaic.  Well that was the plan anyway, when we got there we found it was closed for renovations.  Fortunately though some of the exhibits have been temporarily relocated to a new building and so that was our next port of call. Not bad for a make-do museum, there was some lovely Roman glass, jewellery, and pottery on show. Shame about the ‘Dionysius’ though. 

While out for dinner and drinks here we’ve noticed that the local bars (i.e. bars for locals) have an interesting way of serving drinks. The bar staff only serve beer in 200ml glasses, and it’s table service.  They then, frequently, walk around the locals tables carrying full glasses on special trays, and then replacing any empty ones with these full glasses. The bar staff don’t ask if the locals want a replacement, they just keep swapping them until the drinker puts a coaster on top of his glass indicating ‘no more’. I like it! 🍻