Where to Stay in Köln, Nordrhein-Westfalen

What is Köln known for?

Köln is known for Cologne Cathedral, the Gothic giant on the Rhine that draws pilgrims and crowds to its left bank. The city runs on art and faith. The Wallraf-Richartz Museum, the Museum Ludwig, and the Romano-Germanic Museum hold painting from the medieval to the modern beside the finds of Roman Köln, while the Romanesque churches and the Schokoladenmuseum Köln round out a centre built for wandering.

What are the main landmarks in Köln?

Köln keeps its landmarks along the Rhine and through the old town. Cologne Cathedral dominates them all. The Wallraf-Richartz Museum, the Museum Ludwig, and the Schnütgen Museum divide the painting and medieval art, the Romano-Germanic Museum guards the mosaics of Roman Köln, and the Kolumba and the Museum für Angewandte Kunst carry the rest.

Faith stands among them too, from the Antoniterkirche to the Romanesque churches, while the Schokoladenmuseum Köln draws its own crowd on the harbour front.

What is the history of Köln?

Köln began as a Roman colony on the Rhine, founded as Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium in the first century. Its name still carries that origin. The Romans set their city on the left bank and threw a fort across the water at Castra Divitia in Deutz, guarding the crossing that made the settlement a hinge of the frontier.

The colonia grew into a walled Roman capital of the north. Through the Middle Ages Köln rose as one of the great cities of the Rhine, a seat of the Church whose builders began Cologne Cathedral to hold the relics drawn to it. The cathedral took centuries to finish.

Its Romanesque churches went up across the same quarters, and Deutz Abbey rose on the right bank opposite the old town. The city stayed the largest on the Rhine in Nordrhein-Westfalen, a river capital between Bonn upstream and Düsseldorf downstream, and its Roman and medieval layers still shape the streets of Köln.

Where is Köln?

Köln sits on the Rhine in Nordrhein-Westfalen, its old town spread along the left bank of the river. The Rhine splits the city. Deutz faces the centre from the right bank, linked across the water, while the stream runs down from Bonn upstream in the south and on toward Düsseldorf downstream in the north.

Low ground and the river shape it, a flat river city rather than a hill town.

What is the climate of Köln?

Köln keeps a mild, wet climate in the Rhine valley of Nordrhein-Westfalen. Grey, overcast skies hang over Köln for much of the year. Its winters run cool and damp rather than bitter, and its summers turn warm along the river, with rain spread through the year over the left bank and the old town of Köln.

How do you get to Köln?

Köln is one of the busiest rail hubs on the Rhine, reached by train, river, and road from every side. Trains pour into the centre. The city sits where the main Rhine lines cross, so travellers reach it from Bonn and Düsseldorf in minutes and from across Nordrhein-Westfalen with ease, while the river itself carries boats past the old town below Cologne Cathedral.