Just opposite is the ruin of Rolandseck, with its pathetic legend of unrequited love and constancy. This castle, tradition says, was built by Roland, a crusader, who returned to find that his affianced bride had given him up as dead and entered a convent. He thereupon built this retreat whence he could look down upon the convent that imprisoned the fair Hildegund. When after some years he heard of her death he never spoke again, but pined away until death overtook him also a short time afterwards.
Midway we pass through Bonn, the university town, a clean, modern city of sixty thousand people. The university was founded a century ago and has some three thousand students. Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1770, in a house which now contains a museum relating to the great composer.
Our road keeps to the right of the river, which is swollen and dirty yellow from recent rains. We pass many villages with miserable streets—the road in no wise compares with the one we followed yesterday through the Gorge. Altogether, the fifty miles between Coblenz and Cologne has little to make the run worth while.
We find ourselves in the narrow, crooked streets of Cologne well before noon and are stopped by—it seems to us—a very officious policeman who tells us we may proceed if we will be careful. This seems ridiculous and the Captain cites it as an example of the itching of every German functionary to show his authority, but later we learn that motors are not allowed on certain streets of Cologne between eleven and two o’clock. Our friend the officer was really showing us a favor on account of our ignorance in permitting us to proceed. We direct our course towards the cathedral, which overshadows everything else in Cologne, and the Savoy Hotel, just opposite, seems the logical place to stop. It proves very satisfactory, though it ranks well down in Baedeker’s list.
Cologne Cathedral is conceded to be the most magnificent church in the world and a lengthy description would be little but useless repetition of well-known data. We find, however, that to really appreciate the vastness and grandeur of the great edifice one must ascend the towers and view the various details at close range. It is not easy to climb five hundred feet of winding stairs, especially if one is inclined to be a little short-winded, but the effort will be rewarded by a better conception of the building and a magnificent view covering a wide scope of country. We are unfortunate today since a gray mist obscures much of the city beneath us and quite shuts out the more distant landscape. The great twin towers, which rise more than five hundred feet into the sky, were completed only a few years ago. In the period between 1842 and 1880 about five million dollars was expended in carrying out the original plans—almost precisely as they were drawn by the architects nearly seven hundred years ago. The corner-stone was laid in 1248 and construction was carried forward at intervals during the period of seven centuries.
Inside, the cathedral is no less impressive than from the exterior. The vaulting, which rises over two hundred feet from the floor, is carried by fifty-six great pillars and the plan is such that one’s vision may cover almost the whole interior from a single viewpoint. It is lighted by softly toned windows—mostly modern, though a few date from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and, altogether, the effect is hardly matched by any other church in Christendom.
We make no attempt to see the show-places of Cologne during our stay—it would require a week to do this and we shall have to come again. An afternoon about the city gives us some idea of its monuments and notable buildings as well as glimpses of the narrow and often quaint streets of the old town. The next day we are away for Treves and Luxemburg before the “verboten” hour for motor cars.
If we missed much fine scenery in the Moselle Valley by coming to Cologne, the loss is partly atoned for by the country we see to-day and the unusually excellent roads. Our route as far as Treves runs a little west of south and diverges some seventy-five miles from the Rhine. It is through a high, rolling country, often somewhat sterile, but we have many glorious views from the upland roads. There are long stretches of hills interspersed with wooded valleys and fields bright with yellow gorse or crimson poppies. There are many grain-fields, though not so opulent-looking as those we saw in the Rhine Valley, and we pass through tracts of fragrant pine forest, which often crowd up to the very roadside. There are many long though usually easy climbs, and again we may glide downward a mile or more with closed throttle and disengaged gears. Much of the way the roadside is bordered with trees and the landscapes remind us more of France than any we have so far seen in Germany. We pass but two or three villages in the one hundred and ten miles between Cologne and Treves; there are numerous isolated farmhouses, rather cleaner and better than we have seen previously. We stop at a country inn in the village of Prun for luncheon, which proves excellent—a pleasant surprise, for the inn is anything but prepossessing in appearance. The guests sit at one long table with the host at the head and evidently the majority are people of the village. Beer and wine are served free with the meal and some of the patrons imbibe an astonishing quantity. This seems to be the universal custom in the smaller inns; in the city hotels wine comes as an extra—no doubt somewhat of a deterrent on its free use.
Treves—German Trier—is said to be the oldest town in Germany. The records show that Christianity was introduced here as early as 314 and the place was important in ecclesiastical circles throughout the middle ages. We have a splendid view of the town from the hills as we approach; it lies in the wide plain of the Moselle and its red sandstone walls and numerous towers present a very striking appearance. The cathedral, though not especially imposing, is one of the oldest of German churches—portions of it dating from 528 and the basilica now used as a Protestant church is a restored Roman structure dating from 306. But for all its antiquity Treves seems a pleasant, up-to-date town with well-paved streets—a point which never escapes the notice of the motorist. The surrounding hills are covered with vineyards and the wine trade forms one of the principal enterprises of the place.
A few miles from Treves we enter the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, an independent country, though part of the German Zollverein, which no doubt makes our touring license and number-plates pass current here. It is a tiny state of no more than a thousand square miles, though it has a quarter million people. Luxemburg, where we decide to stop for the night, is the capital. The Grand Hotel Brasseur looks good, though the service proves rather slack and the “cuisine” anything but first-class. Luxemburg is a delight—partly due to its peculiar and picturesque situation, but still more to the quaint buildings and crooked, narrow streets of the older parts and the shattered walls and watchtowers that still encircle it. The more modern portion of the town—which has but twenty thousand inhabitants—is perched on a rocky tableland, three sides of which drop almost precipitously for about two hundred feet to small rivers beneath. The hotels and principal business houses are on the plateau, but the older parts of the town are wedged in the narrow valleys. These are spanned by several high bridges, from one of which we have a delightful viewpoint. It is twilight and the gray houses are merging into the shadows, but the stern towers and broken walls on the heights fling their rugged forms more clearly than ever against the wide band of the sunset horizon. These are the remnants of the fortifications which were condemned to destruction by the Treaty of London in 1876, which guaranteed the neutrality of the Grand Duchy. Only the obsolete portions of the defenses were permitted to stand and these add wonderfully to the romantic beauty of the town. Indeed, the wide panoramas of valley and mountain, of bare, beetling rock and trim park and garden, groups of old trees, huge arched viaducts and the ancient fortifications, form one of the most striking scenes we have witnessed on the Continent. It evidently so impressed the poet Goethe, about one hundred years ago, for a graphic description of Luxemburg may be found in his writings. So charming is the scene that we linger until darkness quite obliterates it and return to our inn feeling that Luxemburg has more of real attractiveness than many of the tourist-thronged cities.