I first saw the cathedral at dusk from a train pulling into the station.  I was staying on the train, on my way from a student seminar in Bonn in 1964.  The Cathedral seemed dark and menacing, backlit by a gray sky and darkening sky, unlike he the towers backlit by the sunset that we saw a day ago time.

On our Sunday in Cologne was not what we expected, time with our friend Joe and his wife Monika, friends from several postings overseas (see last post).   We were on our own with some suggestions from Joe that I will cover in the next post.

We decided to go to the Cathedral, which was about 200 meters from our Marriott Hotel (we are still benefitting from all those points we earned while working overseas.)  The first thing inside we lit a candle for Joe, his wife, who was in the hospital, and brother-in-law who had passed away earlier in the morning.  After some prayers we explored the Cathedral.

Two things struck me.  One was the play of colored light on the floor as the sun poured through a modern window that looked like a bunch of pixels on a computer screen.  The second referred to St. Paul.  Paul said that women should cover their heads in church.  The only women who seemed to be abiding by that rule were a good number of Muslem women visiting as tourists and three nuns in habits.

The next post will include our visit to the Ludwig Modern Art Museum.