When I saw our original schedule, I saw that we were spending an hour changing trains in Cologne; I went to the German train schedules and saw almost hourly service from Cologne to Berlin, and asked our agent if it would be possible to spend a few hours in Cologne before reembarking on the express to Berlin. No problem. Happily. I had been to Cologne a few years ago on a Rhine cruise, and knew the city merited a stop, not just a look at the train station.
We left Brussels at 7:29 (it’s been a loooong day) for the approximately two hour ride to Cologne (which went through Aachen, where, on Christmas Day many years ago, Charlemagne was crowned as the first head of the Holy Roman Empire–Voltaire said it was neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire, but it lasted until Napoleon abolished it). We stashed our luggage in the train station and had two “business visits” as well as a look at the superb Gothic Cathedral that at one time was the largest church in the world.
I had not gone to the first business when I was in Cologne—the Chocolate Museum—partly because, as a chocoholic, I try to avoid temptation. But this is a business credit trip, and I was pleasantly pleased that the museum was more than a “pay us, see how we make candy, then go through our shop and buy some” though was indeed that as well. Sponsored by Lindt, one of the candy makers in Europe, it had really interesting business information—including material on the futures market for cocoa, which has attracted speculators since the 2008 crisis, sometimes making the price more than simple supply and demand; the plant (there was a hothouse that grew the cocoa tree) was given its name by von Linnea, the originator of biological classification, and means something like flavor of the gods; about a third of the cocoa is used in Europe (I enjoy my chocolat chaud for breakfast with a pan de chocolat); and that most of the cocoa comes from developing nations. And we did get to shop. I’m still trying to decide whether I like the Belgian chocolates better than German, but I’m still doing empirical research on the question.
The next visit was to the Farina Eau de Cologne museum, which I had visited and found fascinating. The museum is housed in an Eau de Cologne shop (imagine that), and I had no trouble when Mrs. Hoyt and I visited it. When the 28 of us appeared, however, the cashier said we needed advanced reservations, but she would give us an introduction to the history of eau de cologne. The Farina family, which still owns the brand, created it in 1709 when Mr. Farina came to Cologne; being Italian, he was unable to join any of the local guilds. Entrepreneur that he was, he developed the business, which was important in a Europe that did not believe in baths (something happened after the barbarians drove out the Romans, because there were Roman baths and toilets and sewer systems here and elsewhere in the Roman world). Napoleon was apparently brand loyal, and had his boots made with a compartment to carry a bottle so he could smell good even on horseback.
The piece de resistance, however, is the Cologne Cathedral, begun in the 13th century (the site had been a church for 500 years of so, and had such a pilgrimage following that Cologne built a larger one). It dominates the city, but perhaps the neatest feature of it for us was that a school choir was rehearsing in the church when we were in it, and the Latin Gloria, Agnus Dei, etc. lent verisimilitude to the experience. I just sat there and drank it in.
It was also good to see the Rhine, which has been one of the main trade arteries for Europe.
When we boarded the Cologne Berlin express, I was struck by two features: first, it posted speeds of over 200 km, which is roughly 125 miles an hour. And second, and this is quite unusual in Europe, we had to wait half an hour for another train which was being added to our train, hence we were late coming into Berlin. Being late is so un-European! I thought I was on Amtrak.