A Trip to Germany: Cologne


by Iuri Tarabanov - Date: 2007-01-23 - Word Count: 611 Share This!

In the middle of Europe in the north-western part of Germany is located one of the most interesting cities of the world, Cologne called in German Köln. The city has the population about one million and during the last century it has not been changing significantly. This city takes 4-th place in the rating of largest cities of Germany, being listed after Berlin, Hamburg and München. The administrative district of Germany in which the city is located is called Nord-Rhein-Westfalia and it is the most densely populated one not only in Germany but also in Europe. If you look at the map of Germany, you would notice that this district consists almost of cities. Actually, one city smoothly changes another. When traveling with a car through the area, you would for example, drive into Dortmund. After a drive-through you will notice the "Bochum" sign, after that "Essen" and all that without leaving the urban area.

Cologne is a little bit standalone city though and is not bordering tightly other major cities of the district. The nearest Cities are Bonn and Düsseldorf. By the way, Düsseldorf and Cologne are old rivals and are often mentioned by the inhabitants of the both cities in funny concurrence stories. All three cities are located on the river Rhein (Rhine). The river is densely used by commercial transport ships.

The city itself is a story of many articles and there is no possibility to describe everything that goes on there. Each weekend is simply overflown with cultural and entertainment events and even if you live in Cologne and have plenty of time not being indebted to go to work 8 hours a day, you would never succeed attending everything that is up here. On the official page of the city www.koeln.de there is a so-called day-schedule of events where the top-events are shown and a dozen of other smaller events is randomly selected from the database because the amount of the events per day is too large for one page.

Of course, the main pearl of the city is the Kölner Dom - Cologne Cathedral. It is a huge Gothic Church which is impressing by it's size and look. Every time I see it I have a feeling of respect. It is being constantly renovated and there is a strange prediction that at the moment the renovation is complete, the end of the world comes. Of course you can enter it and have a look at lots of interesting ancient items that are stored there, one of them to mention - The Relics of the three Magi. You can also climb one of the towers up to the top and have a wonderful sight of the city and get tired from those 509 steps of the stairs. In the basement of the Cathedral are located some museum rooms and I have never seen more gold at a time than there. It is worth looking at, you will see there truly mysterious and unique relics.

The city itself has plenty of museums and other cultural places to visit. If you plan your trip to Cologne, I would advise you to spend at least two weeks there, having planned beforehand your schedule. I think, if you plan it including various events and places to visit - these 2 weeks will simply not be enough for you. After all, even for those people who are not really fond of museums and cultural events, there will be a lot of things to do simply on the streets of this city. At last, there are lots of various shops in the center of the city and I didn't manage to discover where this street with the shops ends.


Related Tags: europe, cologne, germany, touristic, westphalia

Iuri Tarabanov writes about interesting travel experiences. His travel site is http://www.travelime.com

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