The day after I arrived in Germany, we took the train to Cologne to go to the Chrismas market and check out the big cathedral. We've driven by it many times, and I was curious to go inside.
So, here we go!
509 steps to the top of the belfry. It all starts here:
There are three sets of stairs up to the top. We'll get to the 2nd and 3rd set later in this blog. This set looks inoffensive, right? Except that you have to hug the inner wall when you run into people going DOWN the stairs. The stairs are pretty narrow. Luckily, we didn't have to do that very much.
(My friend Catherine did this climb in the Summer and she said that she pretty much hugged the inner wall the entire time and that it was also very hot and smelled like sweaty people the entire time. Merit badge to Catherine -- I don't know if I could have done this climb under those circumstances. I'm not a fan of crowds or hot or small spaces. A triumvirate might have sent me over the edge.)
About half way up the tower, you have the option of going into the space that holds all the bells. Fred really likes bells.
You know what Fred also likes? Starting random conversations with guards.
Sometimes, I'm like,
"Don't bother the guards! They're WORKING."
But the guard in this bell tower was bored and didn't mind visiting with us. He told us that a small bell goes off every 15 minutes and if we hang around just a few more minutes (until 10:45am), we'd be there when it rang.
We decided to wait. At 10:45am, the bell clanged three times.
Fred: "Hey! What will happen on the hour?"
Me: "Well, maybe it could ring four times...?"
Fred: "Let's stay up here and find out!"
Me: "Um...really?"
I'll just say this about that: we have got to stop going on road trips the very next day after I land in Germany. I usually fly to Frankfurt overnight and I can't sleep a damn wink when I travel.
I am so jet-lagged in this clip:
You guys. Because Jesus wants me for a sunbeam (/sarcasm), we stood in that bell tower for fifteen minutes until the bells went off again. It was cold. You can see my breath. I'm giggly because I am so sleep-deprived:
"OOO! BONUS!"
(I just love Fred's reaction to the surprise bells)
Part II of the belfry climb involves an open room with a ceiling at least 200 feet high and some scary scaffolding stairs that went up into...OH MY GOD...where?!
It snowed the night before. Those "windows" don't have glass panes. The metal stairs were full of snow and (in my opinion) too dangerous to climb!
I got up three stair sets: my muscles were trembling and my heart was beating fast and this is how the conversation went:
Erin: "Okay. I think I'm done."
Fred: "NO. I won't let you get this far and give up."
Erin: "BUT - snowy stairs! I'm scared!"
Fred: "Pretend you are on The Amazing Race. You must climb!"
Look at the snow on the stairs!
I KNOW!!
They would never let you climb wet, snowy, rickety metal stairs in America. They just WOULDN'T.
(whoever "they" are -- but you know what I mean.)
The platform was shaking as a gaggle of teenaged boys scrambled past me, followed by a woman with a baby on her hip. She was climbing the snowy stairs by holding the baby with one arm and holding the handrail with the other.
"Oh, you are very brave!" I said to her as she passed me.
"...Or very silly!" she replied happily with a crisp British accent.
I decided that if she could climb with the baby, I could do it, too.
I tried not to look down and I was all, "La, La, La -- just climbing stairs, that's all!" until I finally made it to the ceiling...
...only to discover that wasn't the end of it. Part III of the belfry climb is a little metal spiral staircase -- like the kind you find on a ship or backstage. The kind that usually lead to a cat-walk and, you know, are mesh-y and grid-like? Steps that YOU CAN SEE THRU all the way to the ground?
Did I mention that I find HEIGHTS terrifying?!
No, I didn't pull out my camera to take a picture at this point. It was seriously All Hands On Deck for me.
At the top of those stairs, we found ourselves OUTSIDE, spilling out onto a caged-in walking deck at the base of the steeple.
WHAT.
Our effort was rewarded with a stunning view of Cologne:
If you are feeling super nerdy (or you are sitting at work today and have NUTHIN' GOIN' ON) you can read about the Kolner Dom HERE. It is a really beautiful church. I know it's so Amurrrican for me to say this, but I am awed by things that are built over the centuries, staring in the mid 1200s. 1200s!
Inside the church, you walk by all these plaques and it's like,
"Here Lies Bishop Phillip VIX. Died 1380"
...and it's very humbling.
Also, I love that all the European churches have "mascot" relics. We don't really have those, do we? At least, none of the churches I've ever been to (which is to say, mostly heavily carpeted and technofied "Rock Fer Jesus" mega-churches...)
Can you even imagine?
On Christmas day, we went to a church in Trier that has the seamless robe of Christ. My favorite cathedral, in Brugge, has the blood of Christ. This church has the bones of the Magi. The pamphlet I picked up at the front of the church says that inside the sarcophagus, the skulls have been crowned in honor of the fact that they were the three kings that visited the lil' baby Jay-sus (although who knows if that's really true...)
Are you sufficiently creeped out by that?
You're welcome.
I don't know why I find relics so fascinating. I mean, can these things be proved? I don't...I don't think so. But, if I have the chance to see a big gold box that reportedly houses the finger of an apostle, I'm always game to give it gander.
What church relics have you seen?
