Cologne

Top things to do in Cologne

1. 01

   Cologne Cathedral - the shrine, the Richter window and the tower climb

   history culture arts 👍 Popular

   Begun in 1248 and left half-built for three centuries, it was finished to the medieval plans in 1880. Behind the high altar sits the gilded Shrine of the Three Kings, the reason the thing was built at all; the south transept carries Gerhard Richter's grid of coloured squares. A spiral stair of more than five hundred steps reaches the bell chamber.

2. 02

   Koelsch brewhouses - Frueh, Paeffgen and Sion

   food nightlife music ⭐ Highly recommended

   Koelsch is brewed only here, poured into narrow two-tenth glasses and carried in a ring by a blue-aproned Koebes who replaces yours without asking until you put the beermat on top. The halls are panelled, loud and communal, the food is pork and potatoes, and the whole ritual is the single most Cologne thing you can do.

3. 03

   Museum Ludwig - Pop art, Picasso and the Russian avant-garde

   culture arts 👍 Popular

   The wave-roofed building beside the cathedral holds one of the great Pop collections outside the United States, a very deep run of Picasso, Russian avant-garde work and a photography holding that few museums can match. Two hours minimum, and a good rainy-afternoon answer.

4. 04

   Romanesque churches - Gross St Martin, St Gereon and ten more

   history culture arts ⭐ Highly recommended

   Cologne kept twelve great Romanesque churches inside its medieval walls, most of them wrecked in the war and painstakingly rebuilt. Gross St Martin's tower anchors the old-town skyline; St Gereon's decagon is a piece of late Roman engineering with no real parallel; St Maria im Kapitol has carved wooden doors from the eleventh century.

5. 05

   Roman Cologne - the Dionysus mosaic and the Praetorium

   history

   The city was a Roman provincial capital and the evidence is everywhere: a huge Dionysus floor mosaic found under wartime rubble, the Poblicius tomb monument, the governor's Praetorium in a cellar under the town hall, a corner tower of the wall and an original gate arch beside the cathedral. The Roman museum has been through a long rebuild, so check where the collection is showing.

6. 06

   Kolumba - Zumthor's museum inside a bombed church

   culture arts history

   Peter Zumthor built the archdiocese's art museum over the ruins of St Kolumba, laying pale grey brick on the surviving Gothic walls and leaving the excavation open beneath a walkway. Medieval reliquaries hang next to contemporary work with almost no labelling, in rooms lit through perforated brick. The building is the exhibit.

7. 07

   Hohenzollern Bridge and the Rheinboulevard steps

   scenic

   The rail bridge into the Hauptbahnhof carries a walkway buried under hundreds of thousands of padlocks, with trains grinding past a metre away. Cross it and the wide stone steps on the Deutz bank give you the classic view: cathedral, old town and river in one frame, best in the hour before dark.

8. 08

   Chocolate Museum - the Rhine peninsula and the fountain

   food culture arts 👍 Popular

   A glass building shaped like a ship's prow on its own spit of river, running from cacao growing through a working production line to a three-metre chocolate fountain where wafers are dipped for you. Unashamedly a crowd-pleaser, and genuinely well done.

9. 09

   Wallraf-Richartz Museum - medieval Cologne panel painting

   culture arts history

   The city's oldest collection, strongest on the medieval Cologne school of gold-ground painters, then running through Rembrandt and the Dutch to a solid room of Impressionists. Quieter than the Ludwig and the better half of the pair if you prefer old paint.

10. 10

    Karneval - the fifth season

    culture arts nightlife music

    The season opens on the eleventh of November and sleeps until the week before Lent, when the city stops working. Women cut off men's ties on the Thursday, the streets drink for four days, and the Rosenmontag parade throws sweets at a million people. Book far ahead or avoid the dates entirely; there is no middle ground.

11. 11

    Belgian Quarter and Ehrenfeld - bars, records and clubs

    nightlife music shopping

    Cologne's going-out is spread over two districts rather than one strip: the Belgian Quarter for small bars, independent shops and kitchens, Ehrenfeld for street art, Turkish bakeries and clubs in old factory sheds. The city has a long electronic-music pedigree and the record shops to prove it.

12. 12

    Koelner Seilbahn - the cable car over the Rhine

    scenic

    The first cable car built across the Rhine still swings between the zoo bank and the Rheinpark, with the cathedral off to the south and barge traffic underneath. Pair it with the park and its bathing terrace. It runs roughly spring to autumn and shuts for the winter, so it is not a year-round option.

Getting to & around Cologne

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