It's hard to choose a favorite moment, particularly when this trip has barely begun and every day brings something amazing but I foresee today being tough competition for that title! Cologne (or Koln as its spelt in By the locals) was beautiful!! We saw the Dom as we crossed the bridge on our way into the city and even from a great distance it was breathtaking... Up close it was hard to look away!! The story made the beautiful building even more wonderful in my opinion... It's a building in the past, present, and future all at once! It was begun during the renaissance and funded by the donations of pilgrims... Construction was resumed in the 1900s for political reasons, an entire column stands in stark contrast white against the age-faded black where it was destroyed and replaced during WWII and one of the windows is done modern art style to be modeled after an old painting and yet resembles pixels of a zoomed in picture... construction and reconstruction ensures that cathedral will continue into the future. I really enjoyed the last window we saw in particular, with it's many pixels and though our guide informed us it was inspired by a piece of artwork, I saw it as a symbolic piece. All the windows in the Dom told the story of the church during that time period: fueled by the beliefs of pilgrims, more a political statement, a participant or victim of war and now in a constant struggle it seems to find its place and meaning for believers of the 21st century, so caught up in our science and technology that we no longer need the church to give us our meaning in life, and without time to make it to mass regularly (I thought it was a shame that with such a beautiful cathedral the church still has to be combined with another to have enough members for a service) To me the pixelated window represented not only the pixels of our age of technology but the uncertainty of te future role of the church. The unclear image of the window differs from the others which told a story to an illiterate population or conveyed the teaching of the church in that the interpretation is entirely up to the people. Both the meaning of the art and the meaning of the church in our lives is now in our hands. With so many more options in religion than ever before, and armed with or science and technology we are now in a position to control the future of the church in a way believers never have before.