Holland & Belgium Viking River Cruise
Day 7: Thursday, October 31, 2024 - Aachen, Germany
The day's statistics:
- Weather: low 60s
- Steps: 9,811 Linda; 11,438 Steve
- Miles traveled (approximately): 116
The original itinerary called for us to be in Nijmegen on this day. However, due to some canal work north of
Maastricht, and since we were in Nijmegen (nigh-me-gen) yesterday, we had headed further south to Venlo.
We had the usual breakfast.
Today's excrusion - an all day outing - was Charlemagne's Catherdral & Treasury.
Today's excursion will take us to a town call Aachen (aah-ken), in Germany.
We boarded the bus and headed out.
We headed back to the ship.
By about 5:00 we were back on the ship.
We sat, chatted with some fellow passengers, listened to the port talk, and then headed to the dining room.
As usual, after our meal and chatting, we returned to our room and eventually went to bed.
We ate with Bonnie and Mike from New Jersey, and Don and Harry from Florida.
Our guide was Anne, and we headed out at 9:00.
We had a bus ride first, then walking.
The bus was a few hundred meters away.
This would mark the third country of this trip.
I can only think that the female occupant of this residence recently had a 50th birthday.
We also passed a roundabout marker, the train station, and some other sights.
The bus eventually stopped and we got off.
We stopped at the visitors center for a technical break, then headed into town.
Behind the visitor's center was a small park with some ruins in it.
We walked through the park to the far end where there was the "Circle of Money Fountain" (pictured further down).
We crossed the street and entered a square adjacent to the Aachen cathedral.
Our guide stepped into the nearby chocolate store and got us some samples.
After our snack, we continued up a main street past a number of shops, one of which offered a sample of
"moonshine" - though we didn't try any of it.
The bulding behind the fountain housed a museum, as well as a facsimile of a pharmacy from the 1800s.
At the end of the street, we were at city hall. There was a covered section with plexiglass that showed the original
foundation built atop some ruins but sever reflection prevented a decent photo of it.
There was a fountain and some vendor carts near this area too.
At this point we were told we had some free time until 12:45. We would gather back here at the fountain and then
head to the cathedral for a tour.
Before we left the area, we took a quick selfie.
The royal seal.
A statue of Charlemagne.
There is one of these EVERYWHERE.
We walked back through the square, past the cathedral, and to the park, passing the "Circle of Money Fountain"
again. The fountain is supposed to represent someone taking money, and passing it to the government behind their
back, sort of on-the-sly. Separately, a man is giving money to a needy child.
Then we paid a visit to the Roman remains pavillion.
We continued to the main street, and crossed. We made our way into an indoor mall and walked around a little.
We exited, crossed the street again, and came upon a statue.
The children are posed with their pinky extended as shown in the inset. This is supposed to signify the children's
finger pricking in order to verify that the needles that were manufactured here were sharp enough.
In the corner behind the statue was a golden arches. They had their menu on the wall outside so I didn't have to
go through too much trouble to get this.
While it is in German, it is easy to decifer it. They sell a Beyond Meat® vegetarian burger, a chili cheese
McDouble®, and even a McRib®.
But the purpose of this shot was for price comparison of a Big Mac® at $7.09, and a six piece McNuggets®
at $6.14, or $1.02 per nugget.
We wondered around for nearly an hour, and returned to the park for lunch. We brought our lunch with us - a couple
of sandwiches made from the breakfast buffet - so we wouldn't have to worry about trying to find a place and or
what we wanted to have lunch. We originally were going to sit on one of the built-in tier seats, but decided to
move to a bench. We sat and ate while watching the people go by. We didn't see too many "observing" Halloween, but
that is more of an American holiday - that is starting to makie its way to Europe.
We ate slow and just sat for a little since we had some time to kill.
But we eventually headed back to the meeting point, but we took a slightly different route coming up behind city hall,
and then passing by it to the left (from this perspective) while the first time past it we were on the right side.
We made it to the fountain and chatted with others in the group as we gathered.
At 12:45 we headed toward the cathedral.
Our group passed by the left side of city hall - the same route the group took getting there - but turned right on the
other side of it and entered the large courtyard area Linda and I were in a few minutes earlier. Fortunately we were
there earlier because now the scissor lift was up as the workers must have been back from lunch - but we got the
unobstructed picture already.
The entrance to the cathedral was on the right side looking at the cathedral from the courtyard.
Anne went to get our guides - we were split into two smaller groups - as she is not supposed to act as a guide inside
for some reason. Some went inside the gift shop while we waited. She gave her VOX to our guide, Robert, and we entered.
We first stopped by lockers to drop our bags. Flashless photography was permitted, but not bags. I rememberd to grab the
spare battery from the bag before leaving it.
The other group entered the church first while we visited the treasury first.
Admittedly, I was expecting to see where the church held their money. However, there was far more.
The first item Robert told us about was a sarcophagus, adorned with numerouos figures mostly representing gods, depicting
the Abduction of Proserpina from the 3rd century AD, that we unexpectedly heard, pretty much, about every one
of them. I didn't note them all because... it was unexpected.
The next item up for review was this bust of Charlemagne from 1349.
One item of note was that within the crown is a little door / covering which hid a piece of the top of Charlemagne's skull.
What's particularly, let's say "interesting", is that the piece of skull is removed and kissed by the future kings.
A cross, from about 1000 AD, was the next item we heard about.
However, not is all that it seems to be. Unless you noticed the reflection in the image above...
The "front" of the cross is above, that is what the commonfolk saw. The other side, however, was quite the gem.
(Did you see what I did there?!!?)
The back was adorned rather than the front because only the "important people" saw the back.
There were 144 on the back of the cross. And Christ was also not on the cross, but rather Ceasar Augustus was.
The gems were laid out to resemble a little city.
The last piece - yes, we were only shown four, which is why we think we spent too much time on the sarcophagus - was
a large three panel painting. Some of the highlights include: the crucified on Jesus' right is bowing down to him, while
the one on his left is not - but is being ravaged by deamons; there is a politician with a red cape sitting on a horse
off-center right and the horses ass is shown outward as way for the artist to make a statement; and the rider to the
right of the white horse has syphalis due to the coloring of his skin and the way the rider's shoulder is lowered.
While walking through the gallery during the talk, and quickly on the way out, I was able to
capture some additional items on display.
We were in the treasury for an hour.
We returned to the lockers for our belongings, then headed out. We actually had to leave to
get to the church, which was right around the corner, through a small courtyard.
The main doors are the oldest bronze cast doors in Germany. But we didn't use them. We went in the door to the left.
That door led to a staircase which brought us up to the second floor and the king's throne. The stones used on the front
of each level of steps are curved - it is believed they were part of a column.
There were a couple apses with windows.
The ceiling had detailed mosaics, and one wall had a painting.
The pipe organ was more visible from this angle.
Looking out over the railing shows the artwork in the dome, and the floor.
We finished on the second floor and headed to the main level, and saw this statue of Mary (that I took, seriously, seven
pictures of and this was the best - I don't get that...).
Our group had access to the space behind the altar - Robert opened the gate and we went back.
This medalion / relief is what is pictured on the cathedral's brouchure.
There were two coffins behind the altar area. Both were behind plexiglass so the images are less than ideal, partially
because of reflections and camera settings. But we did get some usable shots.
The first coffin, also called a reliquy, was the Shrine of Saint Mary and held four artifacts: Saint Mary's cloak,
Christ's swaddling clothes, Saint John the Baptist's beheading cloth, and Christ's loin cloth.
Each seven years the coffin lock is forced open and the contents are put on display for two weeks. Then the
items are returned to the coffin, relocked, lead is poured into the lock so it can't be opened, and the key
is cut into two with one piece given to city hall and the other retained by the church demonstrating the
unity between church and state (it is simply symbolic becuase the lock can't be opened with a key anyway).
The second held the remains of Charlemagne.
Some stained glass windows.
Along the back wall was some original artwork.
The ambo.
The ceiling.
Our history lesson was over, and we turned to head back out.
These were on the altar side of the wall above the archway.
We saw most of the pipe organ from the second floor and the other side. Here is more of it.
We were actually going to leave the church as this point, but I asked if we could "visit" the center of the floor -
so we could get a "congressional prespective" on the church. Robert took us there briefly.
At least I was finally able to get a clear photo of the statue of Mary...
We were in the cathedral for a half hour.
We stepped out, bid Robert "auf wiedersehen", and continued on with our city tour.
Just outside the cathedral was a model of the cathedral.
We were now essentially at the other end of the courtyard where we had the chocolate sample earlier.
We were in front of an apartment hearing about the stumbling stones.
We headed toward the park.
Near the chocolate shop is St. Foillan Church. We stepped inside for a quick visit.
The church had a revolving door to get in. The person in front of me went through the door... and then stopped without
stepping forward. The revolving door then smacker them in the back, with no injury.
It was a small church, especially compared to some of the others we've been in.
We were only in the church for about five minutes - we had a schedule to maintain.
Just outside this church was an artist painting pictures of the courtyard and some of the people in it,
as well as some other things.
We walked back through the park, the visitor's center, and the bus picked us up at the drop-off spot.
Most of the pictures of the park, some statues, and architecture were blurry. But not all.
Our last gas price-check was in Belgium. Here, we're in Germany. In the US, Shell is - as far as my experience goes -
a slightly higher priced gas. I don't know about in Europe, but this gas is $6.61 per gallon.
We freshened up and hung out in the room for a bit before going to the lounge at about 6:15.
We grabbed a cup of coffee at the coffee station. There are one of these on either side of the ship.
We ate with Angie from SC, Karen from SC, Debbie from NY, and Elizabeth from NJ. They were traveling together and
celebrating their 75th birthdays.
Linda had the Caesar salad, Thai green vegetable curry, and mango lassie cake.
I had the Norwegian gravlax, slow cooked beef short ribs, and vla.