ASIANOVERLAND.NET WINTER EUROPEAN  DAY 47/220: COLOGNE TO AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

 "27/1/1981 Winter Rhine Cruise to Amsterdam

Red Light Area”

The drive along the Rhine Valley is one of the best in the world – hundreds of castles, numerous bus parks and walking tracks, and loo sops available everywhere, great service stations (mini-villages with everything available and clean); with picturesque views of the Rhine River, vineyards, and castles …  But the highlight of the drive is the compulsory photo- stop at Cologne.

Cologne Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral and a renowned monument of German Catholicism and Gothic architecture. It is Germany's most visited landmark, attracting an average of 20,000 people a day. At 157 m, the cathedral is the tallest twin-spired church in the world. It is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe, and has the second-tallest spires. The towers for its two huge spires give the cathedral the largest façade of any church in the world.

Construction of Cologne Cathedral began in 1248 but was slow for three centuries, and building halted in 1560, unfinished. Work did not startagain until the 1840s, and was completed to its original Medieval plan in 1880.

Cologne's medieval builders had planned a grand structure to fit its role as a place of worship for the Holy Roman Emperor. Despite having been left incomplete during the medieval period, Cologne Cathedral eventually became unified as "a masterpiece of exceptional intrinsic value" and "a powerful testimony to the strength and persistence of Christian belief in medieval and modern Europe."

We drive north from Cologne to the centre of Amsterdam, Dam Square, which allows a short walking tour of the famous Red Light district and coffee shops (probably better known for their hashish than coffee), and window shopping tour of the Red Light area.  We then drive down the main drag to Central station, our illegal camping ground for the night, with clean toliet and even shower facilities in the Central Station building.

I give the punters anoth spiel, including a night walking tour of some of Amsterdam’s finest coffee shops, Fat City Bar, The Other Place, and The Last Water Hole, which is our meeting place with great live music and vendors selling ready rolled gold of individual tasting delights, Lebanese Gold, Afghan Black, Turkish Green, Moroccan Gold   … until all the punters have crashed in the bus (still illegally parked about 100 meters away from The Last Water Hole, at Amsterdam Central Station.

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