Museum Days
For the next two days, I did my best to hit all eight museums included in the card. After enjoying muesli and coffee in the morning, I timed my arrival to coincide with the opening of the Cologne City Museum, only to discover that the entire museum was closed for renovations. Not necessarily the most auspicious start, but I didn’t mind easing up on the pressure a little. Across the street was a building used by the Gestapo during the NS era as a prison, torture facility, and execution yard. That was an even worse way to start the day, but it was part of the program and where I could purchase the card to get started. The upper floors with more general information on the Nazi era were only in German, and I realized how far behind I am in my language learning goals.
A cool thing about the museum card is that it included unlimited public transportation on the first day, which I supposed isn’t very helpful because all but one of the museums is within a three block radius. I hopped on the U-bahn and transferred to a street car to go out to the university district where the Museum of East Asian Art was located. It was a beautiful little museum, and I was able to source a lunch in a nearby Aldi and enjoy the park/lake the the museum sits on.
I took the tram back to the New Market square to finish the day with a pair of adjacent museums (Scnuetgen and Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum). I don’t understand why all the museum in Cologne have such weird names. My original plan was to do one, get coffee, then do the other, but since they were in the same building, I decided to get coffee first. In the area, I spotted a restaurant that exclusively sold goulash soup, and I kicked myself for having already eaten. For the coffee, I walked two blocks out of my way to go back to the same nice espresso place (where I wouldn’t be tempted by a full bakery full of sweets).
The first of the two museums was partly located within an old church and was dedicated to medieval art, while the second was a museum of world cultures. I would not have visited them otherwise, but I enjoyed working my way through them.
Back in the hostel, I was working on a German vocabulary list in the lounge, when someone was asking about the wifi password. The American didn’t understand my English, so an Australian girl had to spell it out for him letter by letter. The three of us got to talking a bit and after hearing that neither of them had done or seen anything in the city, I implored them to at least check out the cathedral and its tower. I went with them over to the church to have a second look, but after pointing them to the entrance for the tower, I headed back on my own. (It isn’t worth a second 5 euros to climb).
It started raining on my way back, quickly scaling up from a drizzle to a downpour over the three minute walk back to the hostel. I was completely drenched. So much for a third day of jogging, but as my knees were a bit sore, I did a small workout with my exercise bands and hopped in the shower. The rain stopped by the time I was done, so I popped over to the supermarket again. As I had already had salad for lunch, I wanted to mix it up a bit on the diet and went for a grapefruit and a fruit cup. I had been adding protein everyday through precooked chicken breast in the grab and go fridge. Though there are many more temptations in Europe that can wreck a diet, at least there are plenty of healthy options. Every supermarket has 4-5 different configurations of prewashed mixed salads to choose from without even counting the full salads (with dressing) available.
I ate my fruit downstairs in the hostel and when I finished up, I spotted the two fellow travelers in the bar getting in trouble for asking for glasses to drink their outside purchased beer. They simply had to leave the bar area to the lobby, where outside food and drinks are tolerated. I joined them for a bit until they went out to meet someone for dinner. I headed upstairs for a quiet evening and finished binge watching “Freaks and Geeks,” or as I now think of it–the prequel to “Stranger Things”.
| Breakfast | 2.5 |
| Museum Card | 18 |
| Aldi salads | 3.78 |
| Espresso | 3.3 |
| Water | 0.44 |
| Fruit | 4.87 |
| Total: | 32.89 EUR (256.5 RMB) (USD 36.33) |
Running Total: 23616.7 RMB (USD 3344.81)
Daily Average: 374.87 RMB (USD 53.09)
I had three art museums left on my museum pass and after waking up around 7ish like everyday, I enjoyed a quiet breakfast and some time to work before any of them would open at 10am. The American materialized at 9:40, and I delayed my departure a bit to chat with him.
The Wallraf-Richartz Museum is quite good, though I don’t think I’d agree with the Lonely Planet’s assessment of it as one of the finest collections in Europe. It is just about the right size: three floors with 10 rooms per floor. The floors are divided into medieval, baroque, and 19th century art. I took my time going through the museum and it was lunch time before I even realized it.
With goulash on my mind, I went out of my way to return to that restaurant I spotted the day before. It was perfect weather for a bowl of soup. It was cold, windy, and a drizzle pelted down from the sky. I ordered a portion, which included a brotchen and a refill of sauce. It was good, but I regret that I am not drinking these days because it would have paired nicely with a little glass of kolsch. I can’t believe I am not going to have the local beer while I am here. I also can’t believe that they drink it from 0.2 cL glasses. That’s a baby sized portion!
I headed to the museum of applied arts next. I was directed to the top floor for a special exhibit on the two members of Bauhaus who were from Cologne before I realized that the permanent exhibits were temporarily unavailable due to renovation work. Given the extra free time of a short museum, I decided to have a quick rest in the hostel and get a Starbucks coffee before doing the third museum.
On my way to the Ludwig Museum (modern art), I realized there was a ninth museum included in the card and it happened to be adjacent to the Ludwig. The Ludwig was enormous and I can confidently say it is the best museum in Cologne. I have never seen so many Warhols, Lichtensteins, or Picassos in a single place (even counting the Picasso Museum in Spain). I was getting pretty tired and worried about squeezing in the last museum, so I sped up the last stretch of the galleries only to find it was a pointless endeavor. Like so many other museums, the Germanisch-Romasch Museum’s permanent collection was closed indefinitely for renovations. Altogether, however, the museum card was certainly worth the money.
In the evening I got fancy with my salads, buying them from the Rewe instead of the discount store. Despite having soup and bread for lunch, I was feeling quite ravenous by 5pm, so I probably bought a bit too much. The sun was out again (this weather is crazy), so I made myself go sit by the Rhine to have my meal.
It was a quiet evening back in the hostel, lounging in bed watching a movie on my laptop.
| Breakfast | 2.5 |
| Goulash | 5.4 |
| Starbucks | 2.39 |
| Salads and prunes | 7.36 |
| Total: | 17.65 EUR (137.67 RMB) (USD 19.50) |
Running Total: 23754.4 RMB (USD 3364.31)
Daily Average: 371.2 RMB (USD 52.57)