St. Peter's Dome

I met Heinz on my walk this morning. He's leaving on Easter Monday on a trip back to Germany with his new partner. They go via Singapore, then the 13hour leg to Frankfurt. At Frankfurt airport, he told me they go underground to catch the train, a bullet train that trvels at 320kph. At Cologne station they get off. The cathedral is about 100 metres from the station.

He'll go there first. It was the tallest building in the world for 1000 years. It's construction started in about 900AD and continued for 800 years. 96% of the buildings in Cologne were destroyed by bombs and fire in WW2 but the cathedral survived. The city authorities took out all the stain glass windows before the raids and stored them somewhere safe. Four bombs went into the cathedral but it was of such strong stone and steel construction, and without windows to compress explosion, the damage was restricted internal. The structure remained standing. After the war the windows were replaced and repairs made inside.

Heinz isn't religious. I think he said he was an atheist. But he likes visiting churches. He said today," If there is a God then it is a God common to all of us. Churches and religion are man's work. When I go to Melbourne I go to St Paul's opposite Flinder's street station. I go inside and sit down. It's a respect I feel for fellow humans."

I asked him was the Cologne cathedral Catholic. He replied, "Yes it is, but I don't care about what type of church it is, it doesn't matter to me at all. It's called St. Peter's Dome."

I don't know if I'll ever visit Europe, but if I do the St. Peter's Dome at Cologne will be on my list of must sees.