Tuesday Day 4: Brühl, Cologne, Bonn.

Tuesday Day 4: Woke up in Bonn. I did a watercolor sketch of the view out the window.

Jane has meetings all day, so I'm on my own.

Train to Brühl.
Max Ernst Museum. I am the only person touring the museum at that time of day. There were 4 guards and me. It was raining, wet, and cold. I could not have been happier. At lunch at Chez Max, the museum cafe, I had a moment of bliss acknowledging that this was my life as an artist and at that moment it was perfect. Exhibitions come and go, sales help fund the work, reviews create a sense of critical success, but eating carrot and ginger soup and having a cappuccino surrounded by wilting tulips in a warm museum cafe on a cold wet day in Brühl was Nirvana.

Schlösser Brühl. Rococo castle. Over the top Baroque. I was forced to tour the castle with a group of high school students from Italy. It took over an hour with the guide. I listened to headphones explain the rooms in English. It was fairly empty with very little furniture. Opulence was never so cold.

 I missed the train to Cologne and had to wait on the platform. 

Cologne/Köln. I could have gone back to the museums. I could have explored new museums. I could have had another cappuccino at a museum cafe, but by 3:30 pm I felt pressured to fill the role of the American Consumer. I speed-raced window shopped in the center of Köln, until I got lost and had to find my way back to the train station to catch the train located by The Cologne Cathedral.

The cathedral is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe and has the second tallest spire in the world. This was to be my landmark, but  the shopping district in Cologne city center is so dense that I could not locate the spire. I finally made my way back to the tracks, took the train to Bonn,  met Jane at the statue of Beethoven and found refuge at the First Flush tea room. I should have spent the remainder of the day looking at art. Window shopping made me grumpy.