It has been a long while since I put pen to paper reflecting on the stream of gorgeous experiences I had recently in Europe and Turkey. I have, however, one last post to this BLOG that I must make about that trip. The prime reason to drive from Montpellier through Eastern France to Cologne was to attend an International Geographical Union (IGU) meeting in that city at the main university - a meeting that started on Sunday 26 August and finished on the following Friday. It was one of those jamboree events with hundreds of delegates and numerous concurrent sessions ... which I generally dislike.
On this occasion, the meeting had many pleasant moments, helped by the presence of many good colleagues. For example, one of the largest delegations was from my own institution in Australia, the University of New England. Believe it or not, 5 of us made the long journey across the world to be in Cologne - so we were one of the largest delegations from anywhere on earth. Then I was meeting up with my 7 colleagues who drove with me from Montpellier and, interestingly, I spent quite a lot of time with Kim Doo-Chul from Okayama and Daichi Kohmoto from Kyoto. On top of that, I was staying at the Ramada Park Inn, near Cologne University, with other Australian academics with whom I worked and the Chair of the Local Development Commission, Michael Sofer, was also staying there.
So there was a good deal of networking, but on one morning I was able to take time off and a tram into the city centre for the express purpose of visiting one notable attraction. That was the cathedral and its surrounds and the reason for that is that I have on my computer a remarkable image of that location taken in early July 1945 just a month after I was born. Not only is the image virtually the same age as me, it - or something like it - has also become well known and I show it here for the second time, the first a post on August 12 2011 entitled Sergeant Pepper.
Apparently this picture was taken at the request of my now elderly Aunt Hazel as she was flown over the city in a Lancaster Bomber by a grateful crew giving ground staff at their air-force base a tour of devastated Europe.
This rather lovely August day 67 years later, saw the Cathedral and its surrounds looking like scenes below. The 19th century cathedral was one of the few undamaged or lightly-damaged buildings in the city centre as the result of the bombing campaign. Only a few windows appear to have been shattered.
The interior has some lovely stained glass windows that survived the war:
And much of the surrounding district has, of course, been modernised as the result of the destruction. I departed from Cologne's Hauptbahnhof (below) on one one of Germany's fats ICE trains three days later to catch a flight from Frankfurt to Abu Dhabi.
AS
On this occasion, the meeting had many pleasant moments, helped by the presence of many good colleagues. For example, one of the largest delegations was from my own institution in Australia, the University of New England. Believe it or not, 5 of us made the long journey across the world to be in Cologne - so we were one of the largest delegations from anywhere on earth. Then I was meeting up with my 7 colleagues who drove with me from Montpellier and, interestingly, I spent quite a lot of time with Kim Doo-Chul from Okayama and Daichi Kohmoto from Kyoto. On top of that, I was staying at the Ramada Park Inn, near Cologne University, with other Australian academics with whom I worked and the Chair of the Local Development Commission, Michael Sofer, was also staying there.
So there was a good deal of networking, but on one morning I was able to take time off and a tram into the city centre for the express purpose of visiting one notable attraction. That was the cathedral and its surrounds and the reason for that is that I have on my computer a remarkable image of that location taken in early July 1945 just a month after I was born. Not only is the image virtually the same age as me, it - or something like it - has also become well known and I show it here for the second time, the first a post on August 12 2011 entitled Sergeant Pepper.
Apparently this picture was taken at the request of my now elderly Aunt Hazel as she was flown over the city in a Lancaster Bomber by a grateful crew giving ground staff at their air-force base a tour of devastated Europe.
This rather lovely August day 67 years later, saw the Cathedral and its surrounds looking like scenes below. The 19th century cathedral was one of the few undamaged or lightly-damaged buildings in the city centre as the result of the bombing campaign. Only a few windows appear to have been shattered.
The interior has some lovely stained glass windows that survived the war:
And much of the surrounding district has, of course, been modernised as the result of the destruction. I departed from Cologne's Hauptbahnhof (below) on one one of Germany's fats ICE trains three days later to catch a flight from Frankfurt to Abu Dhabi.
AS
No comments:
Post a Comment