*
The next morning after breakfast they set off for a shopping tour. Claire was delighted by the seemingly endless streets of shops and stores of every description. The men put on a brave face, waiting patiently as every potential gift was examined and discussed in the greatest of detail by the women.
But behind all of that was a vast machine: Cornucopia - pouring out its goods: clothes, electronic goods, souvenirs, food and drink, invoking Christmas shoppers to Buy! Buy! Buy! Wherever Mary and Joseph were they were not very present … perhaps in the Dom, but that was not on the programme.
Later hat day under the stern shadow of the vast Medieval Hohe Domkirche St. Petrus, they headed for the Weihnachtsmarkt, which they discovered was one of the many in the city. Dusk was falling and the market was filling up. Already smell of glühwein hung in the air mixed with that of roasting pork, bratwurst and spekulatius, as the sound of Christmas carols echoed from loudspeakers. The only thing missing was the snow and with the temperature at fourteen or fifteen degrees centigrade and rising that was not about to make its appearance.
They made their to the Heu Market where they enjoyed a fun filled hour of ice skating in vast Christmas rink. With aching legs they then headed towards the Alter Markt where they fought their way into the Sion beer Brauhaus and downstairs to the bierkeller, where Liam squeezed past the waiting crowd and discretely flashed a fifty mark note to the oberkellner, who pocketed it without a blink, showing them to a table table just vacated by two merry couples. It was a trick he had picked-up in Central America, much to the disapproval of Gisele.
The ambiance was that of a traditional bierkeller: scrubbed wood table tops, waiters in their long black aprons rushing about bearing trays loaded with Kölsch and plates piled high with steaming food, and above all a crowd of boisterous drinkers revving up for ten days of festivities.
Kölsch, bratwurst and sauerkraut were consumed in vast quantities with few visible signs of suffering or economic hardship in Germany, and on the surface, at least, few visible migrants fleeing the horrors of war. In fact compared to Paris, Cologne was remarkably European. Liam, as always, marvelled at the cultural differences once he crossed a border. How different France was from Spain and Germany from France.
The Sion Brauhaus in Cologne
The revellers were well dressed, many were what O’Connelly would have described as bobos, bourgeois-bohemians: sleek professionals from the prosperous upper-middle classes enjoying a traditional evening drinking beer in a culturally proud city with its monuments, museums, concert halls and night life. Others were more ordinary Germans, out on the town, visitors from other parts of the country, ending their day of Christmas shopping drinking beer and eating currywurst, enjoying a festive moment with their friends and family.
Sunday morning, Gisele insisted on taking Liam to the Dom before breakfast. A mass was in progress and the small congregation, dwarfed by the vastness of the nave, confirmed his idea that like Ireland, paganism was back, even though a tall banner in the narthex proclaimed Gott tut uns Gut.
After a pause at the Christmas Manger, they left the vast monument to the the city’s fervent Christian past, crossing the square to the Excelsior where they caught up with Pat and Claire already installed in the comfort of the richly appointed breakfast room. Gisele’s programme for the day was a cultural tour of the city, starting with a visit to the Roman Museum.
Outside, the sky was blue and the weather for the day promisingly mild, which to Gisele’s great amusement, Liam was convinced was normal for the Roman city. She had the greatest of difficulties in persuading him that Cologne was normally damp, cold and windy at that time of the year, and probably the rest also.
Cornucopia Page 120
