We got there a few hours early and found a place on a pedestrian-soaked bridge. Many people had been camped on the ashfalt since noon and the crowding was intense. The (rich) people who could afford a spot on the Cologne river boats took a short trip downriver to meet the main convoy coming up from the lower Rhine.
It was like a carneval on both banks! TONS of beer, piles of delicious gummy candies, rides, and a live concert in the old city square. Over 100,000 people showed up!
I began to get impatient as the sun set, so I took pictures of the dome to stay distracted.
The boats arrived! The gigantic sound system riged around the area played Gregorian chants and people held sparklers and candles. It was all very mystical. (This is probably the best night photo I've ever taken. As with any photo on my blog, it comes in high-quality when you click it. Hint hint.)
The fireworks started at 11:30 and blew my mind. Indescribable. You'd have to be there to understand. So I'll try to tell you about it anyway.
The show theam was "fire as technology", staring with the Chinese fireworks and moving up to modern days. The period-style fireworks were synchronized with music depecting everything from the Chinese culture to ship warfare, to interstellar exploration. Colored lights illuminated the trails and plumes of smoke. I really enjoyed the bit about ship warfare. The barge appeared to bombard the city by firing long, silvery streams of flame over the crowded banks. It was quite convincing. My favorite was near the end when they brought out the most advanced firework technogies. There was an amazing "cluster bomb" kind of firework which rippled out from the center in hundreds of thousands of miniature golden explosions and sounded exactly like waves on a shore.
My viewpoint on the bridge put me directly under the show. I'd come back to Germany just to see this again.
