World Chump - Wanderlust

It's only been seven months since the pandemic has been raging, and for a moment it looked like Europe had it whipped. We know the rest of the story. The colder months are now upon us, the citizens of Frankfurt are all out in full force to taste the last of the mild autumn weather until the long, dark, and gray period is rung in. 

It wasn't too long ago when we were in Prague, then in Vienna, two places that now resemble ghost towns following lockdown orders. Germany has been setting new records, and Berlin's half-hearted attempts at containing Covid are destined to backfire. The playgrounds here in Frankfurt, for example, are still packed. The schools are still open and show no sign of closing. As of now, results suggest that there is no connection between open schools and rising Covid numbers.

Just this Monday morning, after I accompanied Liebi to a doctor's appointment in downtown Frankfurt, I took a walk toward the Römer Platz, the very heart of Frankfurt and the top tourist site of the city. This is where the Rathaus is, the town hall. Only two years ago the Frankfurt football team hoisted the German cup in the air to a roaring crowd after their historic defeat of Bayern Munich in the cup final. This is the prime place for vendors during the annual Christmas market, which will not take place this year. I take a good look around the Römer, and there is nobody, not a soul, not a billionaire, bureaucrat, or bum. Incredible. I am in the heart of continental Europe's alpha city, it is Monday morning at 9 a.m., and the place is vacant. Life during a pandemic, part two, or the second wave. Only this isn't a story or a movie (impossible, since the theaters are closed as well), but something very, very real.

Yet somehow, Germany, with over 80 million people packed into an area the size of Montana, is doing better than most. There are plenty of anti-lockdown protests in Berlin, but you also have to wonder how many are actually against the measures out in place and how many are out there for self-preservation, meaning their business had to shut down on orders of the Bundestag.

Meanwhile, no fewer than three pharma companies in Germany have reported having a vaccination that should be ready by the middle of December, when Germany, starting with Berlin, is planning a countrywide vaccine drive. First comes the hard part, though, and that's convincing regulators (see my posts about German bureaucracy) to push through the vaccination. The first to receive the vaccination will be health workers, then members of any risk group, including the elderly and people with pre-existing health conditions. The goal here, besides curbing the spread of Covid, is to have Germany open and ready for Christmas. 

Germany just passed one million cases, which may seem like a trifle compared to others. To Germans, though, that's still one million too many and reason enough to prevent the country from reaching two million. No German logic needed here.

Growing up in a Catholic household, I was taught that it was indecent to bare any "naked skin," as it was termed. That means never walk around the house without any clothes, never around your room, and only if you must in the bathroom. Luckily, we were in California. Okay, so you still had your hippies in the 70s, but by now they kept to themselves or away from the public eye whenever needed. We had four or five TV stations, nothing like HBO, so that the only naked creatures we saw were on Sesame Street, and many of those muppets were even dressed.

Playboy? Never heard of it? Naked statues? Not around here. I remember once walking in on my mother in the bathroom without knowing who was behind that door and I swear I can still hear the echoes of that door slamming. There was a zero-tolerance policy toward nudity, end of story, end of psalm.

Fast forward to Germany: it's my first trip to Munich, a real German city and a traditional Catholic stronghold. My aunt Hanni and Uncle Werner are terrific hosts. We visit the Frauenkirche, the Olympic Village, the English Garden. The English Garden was absolutely gorgeous. This was man and nature in perfect harmony. As I am scanning the trees and bridges of the garden, in addition to the glitter of the river Isar winding through the park, I stare straight ahead and immediately snap my head back, as if I had just sniffed ammonia. I slowly, slowly pivot back again while my relatives are pushing my sisters on the swings. Straight ahead, there's this couple strolling along the river. They sure look happy, I'm thinking. They also are as naked as the day they were born on, and for a moment I wonder if I am in the garden of Eden. Any snakes anywhere? 

I shake the vision out of my head, climb up a slide to distract myself from what I had just seen. That only exacerbated things, because now I had a better view. There must have been dozens of naked sunbathers, in every position: standing, walking, lying down, kneeling, wading through the Isar. Later, I tell my cousin in confidence (no way am I telling my mom's sister) that I saw someone naked in the English Garden. Joachim, my cousin, simply nodded. That was a nude beach, he explained. Perfectly legal. Say what?

So it goes. Now every park has nude sunbathers, Frankfurt included. And now I shrug it off when my kids point out there is a naked man in the grass over there. I don't necessarily think that Germans are exhibitionists, but I also don't believe they subscribe to the beliefs of my Catholic upbringing, either, that nudity is something to avoid. You get used to it, although the little Catholic boy is still not comfortable with it.

In Germany, the word is FKK - Freikörperkultur, free body culture, or nudist colonies. Those are the three letters you need to be aware of in Germany...or welcome, depending on your perspective. According to polls, Germany is the country that is most tolerant of FKK. One-third of all Germans admitted to having been nude in public at least once. Nudity as such is tolerated, for the most part, and the shirts, shorts, and shoes policy rarely enforced. And this under a conservative federal government that's ruled for 15 years and counting now.

The bottom line is that people are not rubbing this in your face, but that there's a different perspective. In quite a literal sense.

After World War II, a lawyer and art collector named Josef Haubrich donated his extensive collection of artworks, including paintings from German Expressionism, the Russian Avant-Garde scene, and hundreds of photographs. For the citizens of Cologne, this was the harbinger of better times to come in the art world following the devastating anti-art stance as displayed by national socialism. Pictures that had been scorned were now accessible to the public again, in what is now known as the Wallraf-Richartz Museum.

Fast forward to the year 1976: Chocolate magnates Peter and Irene Ludwig, enthusiastic art collectors in their own right, donated their collection of paintings to the city of Cologne. Included in the collection were dozens of Pop Art artworks by luminaries like Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist, Tom Wesselman, and Claes Oldenburg, among others. The only condition the Ludwigs had was for the city of Cologne to find a home for them. 

Other than the Cologne Cathedral, I can't think of a more centrally located landmark in the city. The Museum Ludwig is the result of private and public collaboration perfected...and home to the largest collection of Pop Art outside of the U.S. Cologne, to its everlasting credit, couldn't have found a better home, or built a better building, itself a work of art that has visitors intuitively reaching for their smartphones.

By now, we have already been spoiled by the museums we had visited in Vienna, most notably the Albertina. If you are not an art lover, kindly skip this post. If you are, get to Cologne now. Like really. Well, maybe not. Cologne just shut down Museum Ludwig due to COVID, so your visit will have to wait until at least next month. 

Our trip starts in the basement, with contemporary art. It took me 15 minutes to take in Kiosk by Huang Yong Ping, literally a newsstand with newspapers that have been soaked and distorted until they have little more than the appeal of toilet paper, which might have just been the intention. 

The Pop Art collection comes as advertised. Here there is no distance between any of the pictures, it appears as if the city of Cologne was getting paid to cram as many pictures into one room as possible. Nobody in art makes me laugh like Claes Oldenburg (still alive!): his distorted figures, usually of objects of consumption like appliances, are as unique as they are funny. Also, Rosenquist and his use of colors have always inspired me.

Time to pay the Picassos a visit. This is the largest Picasso collection after Paris and Barcelona. Paintings, ceramics, sculptures, sketches, all of Picasso's versatility is on display here. The art connoisseur would probably spend hours here. With two kids, that is impossible, although, to their credit, they have always shown an interest in art. 

One little tip here: look closely for exits on the upper floors if you want to catch some fresh air. You will be treated to some of the best photo ops the city has to offer. It's very rare that museums offer that option for visitors, but then again, it is in their best interest to keep the visitor there for as long as they can.

Why does Museum Ludwig get its own post while the Cathedral of Cologne, the Chocolate Factory, and the Hohenzollernbrücke need to share a post? Probably because we spent more time here than anywhere else. You could easily spend one or two days here if you take your time. For museums in Germany, at least, this one ranks at the top.

As millions of posts on millions of websites have already mentioned before me, the Cologne Cathedral is not only the preeminent landmark of Cologne, but also a guaranteed guide or indicator for the tourist whenever he gets lost in town. And if that doesn't do the trick, Cologne has an even bigger signpost (that would be the Rhein River) for GPS challenged visitors. Piece of jackass cake, right?

The Dom, officially St. Peter, is the most visited site in all of Germany. This became a little tricky with Corona playing havoc with Cologne, but with the Germans maintaining (and politely insisting on) social distancing, we were lucky to see the cathedral in its full glory. 

Curiously enough, work on the cathedral started in the 13th century and was not completed until 1880. Supposedly, the cathedral was to become the final resting place for the remains of the Three Wise Men after they had been brought to the region from Milan, when the Italian city was conquered in the 12th century. Nothing short of a fortress would be suitable for the task, although the construction of the cathedral was halted for three centuries when money was scarce and interest in Gothic architecture low.

During WWII, Cologne was devastated by British air raids, beginning in 1942. Here, 1,000 aircraft teamed up to destroy more than 13,000 buildings, for the most part civilian homes. The cathedral took a few hits, but still stood tall when all was said and bombed, a testimony to the skill that went into its elaborate construction. Outside of the cathedral, there are plenty of old black and white photographs to remind tourists just what had happened here in Cologne and how the war had scarred the city. One of Cologne's most famous sons, Nobel laureate Heinrich Böll (one of my favorites), writes about it extensively in his novels. 

From the Cathedral, we use the Hohenzollernbrücke, Cologne's largest bridge, to cross the Rhein. Predictably, the bridge is gigantic, not only serving pedestrian and bike traffic but more than 1,000 trains per day. There are also an estimated 500,000 love padlocks attached to the bridge. That's a lot of metal, and I almost wonder what that would do to the stability of such a big bridge. Anyway, when you reach the other side, this is where the smartphones come out and you can make the best shots of the city.

An absolute must for kids would be the Lindt Chocolate Factory. From the Hohenzollernbrücke, we double back south until we cross the Deutzer Brücke. When we reach the Chocolate Factory along the Rhein, the kids do jumping jacks with excitement. Predictably, it is all chocolate: chocolate rabbits, elephants, people, windmills, the Cologne Cathedral, no stone or chocolate bar goes unturned here. There is a miniature production site that shows the robotic creation of chocolate forms (with a little help from lowly human beings). 1,000 pounds of chocolate are produced daily, probably just enough to meet the demand for the city.

There are old chocolate vending machines, which were extremely popular in Germany before the war. There are posters of old advertisements that go back 100 years, including some I remember from the late 1970s. The pictures will change, the slogans will, but quality chocolate will still always sell in Germany, even if you pack it in toilet paper. Each German consumes 19 pounds of chocolate per year, trailing only their neighbors to the south in Austria and Switzerland. There's a chocolate fountain that has been closed due to COVID, much to the kids' chagrin. So, parents: include the Chocolate Factory in your tour of Cologne if you want to avoid whiny tweens or teenagers. 

Next to the factory is a giant Ferris Wheel, which is part of the admission to the Chocolate Factory. Here we go, the smartphones come out, click, click, and we have some more phenomenal pictures of Cologne along the Rhein. For dinner, we go to a restaurant in the Heumarkt (hay market) district, where you have dozens of good dining possibilities, most of them quite reasonably priced. GREAT day in Cologne. Liebi and I celebrate with a good bottle of the local beer, Kölsch. And I still need to remind myself that it took me more than three years to take my family here.