Before I went to Germany, I happened to watch a film from Discovery channel about Cologne Cathedral. Apart from the bumpy process of the construction and reconstruction, which took over 600 years to complete it, I was drawn particularly to the architect, Master Gerard, who designed the cathedral and knew that it would not be finished in his life time.
I think the architects at that time all seemed to have the same understanding that their designs were so time consuming yet timeless that they didn't seem to care if they wouldn't be able to see them completed. Their idea of time was selfless. Unlike most of us, we like to see
our dreams fulfilled by
ourselves in the time frame of
our life rather than leave them to some unknown hands of unknown times. For them, the ideas created seemed to be more important than the buildings actually built.
I was quite surprised to see the cathedral right after we stepped out of the train station, even though I was told so. The church was lit up beautifully, and our tiredness of the long trip disappeared right away. We were just standing there and in awe.
Next morning, we had a good look of the cathedral. The 12 apostles were standing at the facade, and I found Noah immediately. I liked the idea of him holding the ark and the dove on top of it.
It took me a long time to take this picture, and as you know I almost had to lie down to take the whole view.
The interior was awesome, but I was stupid enough to miss the elevator to the top.
It's nice to bike around the cathedral; too see the river, the trains crossing the bridge.
What's souvenir to buy? most shops are the same everywhere. But I found the bookstore of Museum Ludwig, and found this nice picture book. It's another "don't look" story. The elves helped people in Cologne, but don't look at them. A wife did, and they stopped coming. Now people in Cologne have to work hard without any help from the elves.
And I stumbled on this coffee cup when I passed by a store. It was hidden at the back of the shelf, but somehow I just noticed the unique shape and fell in love with it. I bought 2 of them.
You just know it's yours when when you see it, like finding a lover.
The station in Cologne is small and not that busy like Munich. We took a train to the picture book museum in Troisdorf. The German name is Burg Wissem Bilderbuch Muserm Der Stadt Troisdorf, which is about 30 minutes from Cologne.
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| The parking area seemed to be the play ground of the gorilla-like creatures. |
The entrance of the museum. It took us a while to find the place. The locals didn't seem to know that they had a picture book museum here. And we, the international fellows came all the way to visit it.
They have exhibitions of original illustrations, puppet theaters, library, and reference room. This definitely is a must-visit place for people who study picture books.
But their most famous collection is the Red Riding Hood books.
This shelf has riding hood stories from around the world.
And, we were surprised to find this porno version of the riding hood story. We didn't get to read it, but just by the cover, we already had a lot of imagination.
I like their library, where you can find small couches, tables, and stools for little people who love the read.
What a nice place to hide and travel with all the books to the worlds beyond our world. I hope I can find a picture book museum like this in Taiwan soon.
And, I think they like lions so much, they even like the characters who look like lions. Like this famous Struwwelpeter. For me, I found it was hard to love this character, a gloomy face with nasty long hair and nails. For a person who studies children's literature, I should know about him or like him. But, before I came to Germany, I hadn't had even heard about him. I was surprised that they even have a museum for him in Frankfurt. So I was there, with all these Struwwelpeter experts and felt like an idiot of children's literature. 
