We only had a short time in Cologne. When we awoke and looked out the first thing we noticed was the flea market booths set up along the waterfront. We set out to explore the city as soon as we finished breakfast and planned to meet our scheduled tour at the museum. Our goal was to see the Cathedral in Cologne. We followed the general directions given to us by Ben, the hotel manager on the boat. We were soon at the cathedral steps. The High Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Mary is the most visited landmark in Germany. The cathedral was started in 1248 and was not completed until 1880. Although hit more that 70 times during WWII, it did not collapse.

Even though it was Sunday morning, we were able to step inside the cathedral and take some pictures . Since the cathedral is so large there are several areas where services are held. We could not get far enough away to get pictures of the entire church.

After visiting the cathedral, we met our group at the Roman-Germanic Museum. We decided at this point that we would skip the museum and continue to explore the city on our own in the little time we had.

We stopped in the cologne store to look, but did not buy any of the cologne named after the city, Eau de cologne.

Near the cathedral stands an arch remaining from the Roman city, Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, from which the city of Cologne arose.

We returned to the boat for lunch making our way through a very crowded flea market. We then set sail for Amsterdam our final port on the trip. This evening was the Captain's Farewell Dinner and as we dined rain showers provided us with a double rainbow.

Tomorrow we will be at our final destination, Amsterdam.