Bus-Train Tour, 9/11/1994 Leads To Boat On Rhine River

Cologne Cathedral
Emblem Of City

By Bob Van Leer

(COLOGNE, GERMANY, Sept. 11, 1994) - Tonight we arrived at Cologne, Germany, and settled in our cabin on the MS Britannia, a cruise boat tied to a dock on the Rhine River. This will be our home for the next couple of days.

  We left Amsterdam this morning for a short drive to Delft, near The Hague, the capital of Holland. The official name of the country is the Netherlands, but natives and all call it Holland, the name of one of the country's seven provinces.

  The drive by bus was through the flat fields recovered from the ocean. All of the land in this area is below sea level. An intricate system of drainage ditches and canals keeps the polders (fields) dry. Pumping was originally done by the picturesque windmills. Our guide, Roderick, said of the 10,000 windmills originally, 1000 are still left, and 10% of these are still in use.

  Farming is intense row crop agriculture of potatoes, corn and other crop interspersed with grazing land. Agriculture is big in Holland and there are thousands of acres of greenhouses. Holland supplies flowers, bulbs and nursery stock to much of the world.

  Delft is home of the porcelain pottery of the same name. Two relatively small factories supplying 10% of the market do hand-painted pottery, but most decoration is done by mechanical means.

  Then we drove on to The Hague, capital of the country and seat of the International Court of Justice. North of The Hague is a resort town, Scheveningen, on the North Sea beach. In it is an unusual display called the panorama. It is a painted panorama of Scheveningen as it looked in 1880. It is a 360 degree painting 14 meters high and 14 meters from the spectator. Even knowing it is a painting, the illusion of depth is almost real.

  After lunch, we drove to Utrecht, perhaps 30-40 miles away to catch a train for Germany. The cars were clean and comfortable and the train fast. In about two hours we were in Cologne, the fourth largest city in Germany with a population of just over a million. The emblem of Cologne is its mighty cathedral, a masterpiece of Gothic architecture and one of the largest cathedrals in Europe. Began in 1248, it was the most ambitious building project of the Middle Ages. Work came to a halt at the beginning of the 16th century and the cathedral was not completed until 1842-80. For 350 years there was no work done because the workers were off fighting wars.

  The interior area is 6,166 square meters, and the interior is 143 feet high. Cologne was one of the most heavily bombed cities in World War II, but Allied pilots spared the cathedral. The train station next door was bombed and the building showered with debris. Windows had been removed and stored in barns so they weren't harmed.

  Dinner was on board the ship and we are to get underway about 4:00 a.m. The ship has 182 berths and is 110 meters long. Tomorrow starts our cruise up the Rhine.
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