Queen Chrysalis: The Ruhr is the industrial heartland of Germany, unique in having no single population locus(sss-t). While Dortmund and Essen are the two largest cities there, every other little region contributes a significant share of the local wealth and culture, which historically revolved around coal and steel.

Nowadays the agglomeration, lying on the Rhine among other rivers, is very well-connected to Frankfurt. The illustrious city of Cologne lies a little south (upstream), and it was here that Parcly and Spindle would make their next sojourn…

Parcly Taxel: Despite the Citadines being branded as an “Apart’Hotel”, I never got the feeling of an apartment. It was just like any other hotel.

After eating the hotel breakfast – yet another buffet – we had to squeeze into ICE 728 bound for Essen Hbf, manouevring around two unforeseen obstacles: the platform had changed and the train was delayed by around 12 minutes due to overwhelming demand. We alighted at Köln Messe/Deutz, quite close to the LANXESS Arena where IEM Cologne, the “Cathedral of Counter-Strike”, had just been held.

But we were heading for the real thing.

Spindle: It took us a good deal of teleporting and asking around to realise that S-Bahn service to the Hauptbahnhof was on a numbered track in the long-distance station, not somewhere else. Though it’s only one stop, we were immediately rewarded with the imperious western face of the Kölner Dom towering above us; it was cloudy and windy in the city, a pleasant surprise which would persist throughout our day trip.

Chrysalis: The Cologne Cathedral, as this World Heritage Site is known in English, is the most famous building in all of Germany for reasons more numerous than the changelings I once ruled over. Its construction over six centuries turned it into a cornerstone of unity for the German state, a nascent empire when it was finally topped out; its status as mother church of a corresponding Catholic archdiocese means it still fulfills social functions; its gargantuan size (twin 157 m steeples) gave it the title of world’s tallest building for a few years and immortalised its place in Cologne’s iconography.

Spindle: Yet, changeling queen, the inside shines brighter! Kölner Dom was originally built to house the remains of the purported Three Magi. This reliquary, termed a Shrine, consists of three sarcophagi piled in a triangle, gilded in pure gold and coloured with priceless antique gemstones.

Chrysalis: Yeah, when from a distance (behind a bulletproof display case and iron bars) any gemstones would scarcely be visible, leaving just a solid gold veneer to the eye like changeling cocoons…

Spindle: The on-site documentation told me that. Anyway, there are many other icons and relics throughout Kölner Dom, each with its unique backstory and soul. Even the towering stained-glass windows can be included in their company, shaping sunlight into an entourage of holy figures and biblical scenes.

Before our trip, however, I had marked (in Kindred’s sense) the newest stained window in the cathedral’s collection, a hypermodern take consisting entirely of pseudorandom pixel “static”. This window replaced a colourless one, itself erected to replace the original destroyed during a great war; the unfiltered light transmitted through the colourless window disturbed more than a few churchgoers. It happens that the artist is a local windigo – Gerhard Richter – which might explain why I fell for the design.

Parcly: We had hardly taken in half of Kölner Dom’s collection of glorious treasures and masterpieces, let alone ascended up to any higher floor (the majority of visitors don’t ascend either, anyway), when our stomachs (both mine and Spindle’s) began asking us to take in something edible.

Passing by a full-scale concrete replica of the steeple finials, whose hoisting into place marked the cathedral’s final completion, we arrived at Früh Gastronomie, affiliated with a local brewery of the same name. My body was becoming tolerant of alcohol by now, so I ordered a half-pint of the brewery’s beer to go with a fat pork knuckle and potatoes.

Spindle: There’s a sort of downside to Kölner Dom though – it so dominates the city that unrelated establishments can be hard to find. Like in Munich we lost ourselves in peripheral streets and their small shops, at one time stumbling upon Hauptbahnhof again, before discovering the Schokolademuseum whose subject is Parcly’s favourite treat of chocolate.

Parcly: It’s a fairly comprehensive museum with exhibits not only on the early history, sources and manufacturing of chocolate with live machines on full display, but also how Europeans both elevated it to an art form and brought it down to the mass market, to little fillies, with coin-op dispensers and colourful mascots, including a full-size Milka cow. And yes, Lindt is a sponsor.

I had a “tea party” at the in-house café afterwards with a glass of cream-and-powder-topped hot chocolate, looking out to the Rhine. Then as we left for the train station Spindle’s prediction of rain came true, inducing a quickening of my hoofbeats towards ICE 911 back to Frankfurt (Main) Hbf.

Spindle: Knowing that this was our last night overseas, we kept things simple and treated ourselves to beef veal at a restaurant just outside Skyline Plaza – whether it was actually part of the Plaza was open to debate, especially in an era of “integrated developments”.

But another ethereal being connected to Parcly had been watching.