The Crazy Cologne Carnival – Kölner Karneval

Editor’s Note: This is from my 1996 backpacking adventure. Names have been changed since I haven’t talked to these people in over 20 years.

A couple days after partying on the Reeperbahn, it was time to continue our backpacking adventure. Vera and I decided to check out Cologne on the advice of Anna and after reading a little about how they celebrate Carnival. Anna said she could join us for one last bit of fun before we had to part ways.

We awoke around 6:30 and had time for coffee before we hopped into the family VW Golf and headed to the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. We were tired and didn’t talk much, I was engrossed in looking out the windows to get a view of regular life. I love regional advertising, seeing how each place does it a little different for similar products. The world has changed since 1996, and marketing has become much more homogenized. People wear similar clothes from the same brands and listen to the same music much more today than when I was younger.

At this time on a Sunday morning, still dark of course in German winter, I was just looking at the glowing store signs as we went through an uncountable number of traffic lights. There weren’t many people on the road and we were there in a short time. We all got on the train easily thanks to our passes and headed to Cologne, or Köln.

The 4 hour ride was uneventful, we ate some Polish snack foods that Anna brought and then napped a bit. The day was overcast as we crossed the river were greeted by the dark gothic spires of the Cologne Cathedral. It was enormous, with its pinnacles and flying buttresses dominating the skyline. I had no idea the station was right next to the church, it made for a grand entrance. Almost immediately after we arrived at the station, the festival atmosphere hit us. We put our bags in train lockers and walked right into a giant party.

Kölner Karneval Sunday

There was an carnival with rides and games set up, music blasting from competing speakers, people walking around wearing funny hats and drinking beer for breakfast. What hit me the hardest was the intoxicating aroma of bratwurst wafting through the air as the food vendors opened up. It didn’t take long for me to embarrass myself. With the girls in tow I got myself a silly paper hat, a beer and a sausage. I was in heaven.

We sat down on a bench and right next to us was the towering facade of the cathedral. Every inch covered in statues and decorative carvings. You just keep looking up and up, and up and you realize why these places took centuries to build. After finishing our beers and brats we walked around the area around the front of the church and through the carnival.

Things were starting to pick up it looked like and some revelers were already pretty wasted. There was puke and hypodermic needles on the ground which grossed us out so we headed back in time for the big Sunday parade. I’m not one for parades, but this was a really good parade. Besides easy access to beer, I’ve never seen a parade give out so much candy. Back home they will throw out little candies and mini chocolate bars. This parade? I almost got hit in the head with a full size Milka bar thrown from a float! It hit the stone wall behind me with a crack and I picked it up and saved it for later.

We were right in the thick of the crowd and were getting pelted with all sorts of high quality chocolate. I stuffed every pocket with Milka and other candies, which would serve us well on the trains. We were talking to some of the people in the crowd and they said tomorrow’s parade is the biggest, 5 hours long.

I always thought Fat Tuesday was the big day of Carnival, that’s why they call it Mardi Gras in the US. The North German tradition of Karneval holds Rose Monday as the big day. Unlike in New Orleans, Fat Tuesday is a smaller celebration before Ash Wednesday’s closing tradition of burning an effigy called a Nubbel.

After the parade past us we continued to walk the route as we followed a crowd the had quite a few people dressed up in cool costumes. With the candy and the costumes it was kind of like Halloween, except it’s March, and its daytime, and there were drunk people everywhere. This is what traveling is all about!

We aimlessly walked streets lined with stalls selling all sorts of refreshments. The air smelled amazing with a mix of sausage and pastry wafting through the cold breeze. We met a whole family dressed like mongols, with weapons and everything and we took some pictures. Then we joined them at one of the stalls serving cold nips of Jägermeister and Bärenjäger, a honey flavored liquor that is dangerously tasty.

Introduction to Kölsch

We staggered on, day drinking starting to take its toll we decided to head back towards the station since Vera and I would have to find the hostel at some point. Close to the station there was a small neighborhood that seemed quiet but found a small pub filled with locals. We decided to check it out and rest our feet. It was a cool, old-looking place of dark paneled wood, with an older crowd all drinking tall narrow glasses of kölsch, a type of beer traditionally served only for Carnival time, but now popular among American microbreweries. I thought it was weird having small beers served in what looked like a Collins glass, but It was cheap, somewhere around a dollar a glass. It was also really good, and light, so the two drunk girls and I had a few more before coming to the realization that it was time to say our good byes to Anna.

School was starting next week and she had lots of work to finish. I couldn’t help but be sad, my longest and best pen pal, back when there really were pen pals, showed us an incredible time. Looking back I am still so grateful for her and her little family putting up with two strangers for nearly a week. I will never forget their hospitality and kindness. Part of me realized sadly, no matter the promises travelers make on the road, I would probably not see her again. Over the years life got in the way, we grew up and we fell out of contact.

Back to Backpacking

Now it was just the two of us again, staggering drunk in the afternoon and now had to get our packs from the station and take a tram to the hostel. Luckily I memorized the route on the train to Cologne, because not only were the two of us drunk, but apparently the rest of the City was even drunker. We got on the right tram that was filled with every manner of German society, from businessmen to soccer hooligans, to heavy metal enthusiasts to grandmas…all loaded and singing and yelling.

When we got to our stop the push to get in by a bunch of punks kept us from getting out at first. That is until I acted like a battering ram with my pack as weight and busted through the line before the doors closed. But in the process, I pissed off a group of spike haired headbangers and I thought I was going to have to fight. I turned around to face them but they were on the tram laughing and giving me the finger as the doors closed. With that over, we headed to the hostel, just around the corner.

The hostel was another large clean, well organized, and packed German youth hostel, but without roving bands of screaming kids like in Hamburg. After living at “home” more or less for a week, we had to get back to the cold grind of the hostels. By some miracle they had a double available and we took it, figuring we saved money by staying at Anna’s. The rest of the night is a complete blur, but we did have a feast of snacks packed by Anna’s mother.

Paying the Price for Too Much Fun

The two of us slept through the biggest party day and the 5-hour parade. When I wasn’t sleeping, I was in the bathroom paying for my diet of beer, bratwurst and Jager. Neither of us ate anything for breakfast or lunch and only drank water and Sprite. Even though we still felt pretty rough, the realization that we had to plan our next move was sinking in.

We had been planning to go to Prague next, but we hadn’t done all that much research yet. Prague was a bit mysterious for us, being behind the Iron Curtain for so long, neither one of us knew much about the city. We spent time looking over the Prague section of our guidebook and then found the right train on our Eurail schedule book. We still planned on visiting Bavaria, but figured by heading East we had more options than heading South from Cologne.

We were still well stocked with goodies from Anna’s mom and the parade, most of our clothes were still clean, so all we really had to do was hop on the train in the morning. But I really wanted to check out the inside of the enormous Cologne Cathedral and so far it looked like it wasn’t going to happen. We decided to make use of the last couple hours of daylight to take some pictures and maybe get into the Cathedral.

The party was still going on outside of the hostel and the tram to the historic center was still as packed as yesterday. But by the time we got to the area near the station the place was nearly empty. I checked the door to the giant stone church but it was locked. At least I had the whole place to myself to take pictures of all the intricate sculpture.

We then walked along the river and checked out the old houses that line the quay. There is an old stone arch in that area that was one of the original city gates, of Roman Colonia. The bars and restaurants all seemed full in this area, and honestly beer and German food was not what we were looking for.

German-Chinese Food for Dinner

As we headed back toward the station we wandered through a shopping district that Carnival left in disarray. We found a large Chinese restaurant and figured some hot vegetables and noodles would be a nice change. I love how Chinese food changes depending upon who they are cooking it for. No matter where you are, you are bound to find a place that offers up hot, inexpensive food that is usually pretty good. The menu had a mix of dishes that I knew but some I never heard of.

Over hot tea and some form of lo mein noodles, we talked about our next adventure. I remember how excited we were to see Prague, we’ve heard so many good things. How cheap it was, how so much of the old city was intact and of course, their beer. I wasn’t drinking that night but I knew after 8 plus hours on a train I was going to need a few.

After dinner we strolled through the mess of streamers and wet confetti, it was eerily quiet with only a few remaining revelers walking among the closed shops. Above us and in the distance were the illuminated Gothic spires of the cathedral on one side and imposing Romanesque towers of the Gross Saint Michael on the other. We didn’t see all that much of Cologne but our brief stay was fun…and we paid for it.

Early Morning Visit to Cologne Cathedral

The next morning we woke later than usual and missed the earliest train for Prague. However it was still early enough, and I had the idea of maybe we could go inside the Cathedral before our train. When we got to the station we had about an hour before departure and the sun was still not quite up on another chilly German morning. We headed to the church where I pounded on the big front door of the Western fascade. A grumpy looking priest opened the door and as I pleaded our case about wanting to see the Cathedral and he reluctantly let us in. It was still too dark for the stained glass to be illuminated, but it is the only time I’ve been inside a darkened Cathedral and it was haunting.

The carved columns rose all around and up beyond into the darkness like the Mines of Moria. You could see glints of silver and gold in the distance but it was hard to make anything out. I can’t even remember if we walked the entire space since it was hard to see where we were going and the priest made it pretty clear that he wanted us out. I was really hoping to delay long enough for the sun to hit the stained glass but our time ran out. We dropped a few Deutschmarks in the bin as he ushered us out near the North Transept, which faces the train station. It was going to be at least an 8 hour trip, with several stops and changing trains in Dresden. We grabbed some coffee and got ready for the longest train ride of the trip thus far.

https://koelnerkarneval.de/