My Excellent European Adventure 60th Anniversary - Chapter 14: Racing Across the Continent

 

Nearing the end of our six-week tour of Europe, we were moving fast,​ trying to cram in all the places we wanted to visit​ while sticking to our planned itinerary . . . except for one risky change of plan that resulted in a very uncomfortable night in Canterbury.

From Munich we headed north to Frankfurt am Main, where we had an unique experience:  afternoon tea with the Methodist bishop of West Germany, Friedrich Wunderlich, in his home.  The visit was arranged by a friend of my family who was in the U.S. Army stationed in Frankfurt.

From Frankfurt we motored on to Cologne, with its iconic twin spire cathedral.

The next morning, before we left, I photographed the great cathedral.  It's so huge I couldn't get it all into one frame.  It seats approximately 4,000 people.

According to Wikipedia, "Construction of Cologne Cathedral began in 1248, but was halted in the years around 1560.  Attempts to complete construction began around 1814, but the project was not properly funded until the 1840s.  The edifice was completed to its original medieval plan in 1880."

After its completion in 1880, at 515 feet the cathedral's towers were the world's tallest building until the Washington Monument was completed in 1884.  When we visited it in 1966, the cathedral was the second tallest church building in Europe -- tallest was the Ulm Minster in Ulm, Germany -- and with the completion of the Sagrada Familia towers in Barcelona last year, the Cologne cathedral is now the third tallest.  It was declared a World Heritage site in 1996, and is Germany's most visited landmark.

Later that morning we drove to Amsterdam, where we visited the Rijksmuseum, and stared in awe at Rembrandt's "Night Watch" and other paintings from the Dutch Golden Age (1588-1672), the period when the Netherlands became one of the leading commercial and maritime powers in Europe.

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The next few days are fuzzy in my memory.  From Amsterdam we traveled to Brussels, where I found that record shop I reported in the post before this one.  But I do remember that by this time we were so eager to get back to the U.K. we decided to leave the Continent a day ahead of schedule, even though we had no place to stay in England that night.

We took the ferry from Ostende back to Dover and then drove 16 miles to Canterbury in hopes that the hostel we had booked for the next night (and had paid in advance for) would have room for us.  They didn't.

So we spent the night in the van -- all nine of us -- in the parking lot of Canterbury Cathedral.  None of us slept well.  At some point during the night -- I think it was about 1:30 or 2:00am, but who knows? -- a Bobby knocked on the window and asked if we were OK.  Tom, our adult leader, explained our situation, and the Bobby told us we would need to leave at dawn . . . at least that's how I remember it.  

Canterbury Cathedral is located on the site of one of the oldest Christian structures in England.  It was founded in 597 CE, but over the centuries it has been destroyed, rebuilt, and enlarged many times.  Its history is far too long and complicated to be recapitulated in this post, so if you're interested, check out the information at Wikipedia here.  Nevertheless, before we left town I took a few pictures of the cathedral.

After Canterbury, we headed back to London, where we had a few more tourist-y objectives.  I'll elaborate on that -- and what we encountered at Heathrow Airport on departure day -- in my next post.