Cologne Cathedral: Travel Guide (4.7★)

A cathedral at the station door

Few great churches are this easy to reach. Leave Köln Hauptbahnhof by the main hall, climb a short flight of steps, and you’re on the Domplatte. The cathedral’s dark, soot-stained stone rises straight up in front of you. Its twin spires reach roughly 157 metres, and from this close you have to tip your head right back to see the tops.

Your train ticket gets you as far as the porch. The address is Domkloster 4, but nobody needs it. Every street in the old town seems to tilt towards those spires, and from most of central Cologne they’re the easiest way to find your bearings.

Six centuries to finish a facade

The foundation stone went down in 1248. Work then stalled for roughly three hundred years, and a medieval crane stood on the unfinished south tower long enough to become part of the skyline. Building only resumed in the 19th century, working from rediscovered medieval plans. The cathedral was completed in 1880.

For four years after that it was the tallest building in the world. It survived the Second World War despite repeated hits from bombs, and it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. Expect scaffolding somewhere on the exterior. The cathedral workshop, the Dombauhütte, has never really stopped repairing the stone.

Gold, oak and eleven thousand squares of glass

Inside, the nave is tall and narrow, and the long view east pulls you towards the choir. These are the pieces to look for:

• The Shrine of the Three Kings. This gilded reliquary behind the high altar is the reason the cathedral was built. Begun by the goldsmith Nicholas of Verdun around 1190, it is said to hold relics of the Magi.
• The Gero Cross. This carved oak crucifix dates from the late 10th century. It is regarded as the oldest surviving large crucifix north of the Alps.
• The Richter Window. Gerhard Richter’s 2007 window in the south transept is made of more than 11,000 small squares of coloured glass. On a sunny morning it throws patches of colour across the floor.
• The medieval stained glass. Several windows in the choir and the north aisle survive from the cathedral’s first centuries.

The Treasury (Domschatzkammer) has a separate entrance and its own ticket. Its vaults hold liturgical gold, vestments and reliquaries. Allow about an hour for the main church, and longer if you add the Treasury or the tower.

533 steps up the south tower

The climb is what most visitors remember. A narrow stone spiral of 533 steps takes you to a viewing platform roughly 100 metres up. You pass the belfry on the way. It holds St. Peter’s Bell, the “Decke Pitter”, one of the largest free-swinging church bells in the world.

From the top you look straight down on the Rhine, the Hohenzollern Bridge and the rooftops of the Altstadt. The stairwell is tight, and two-way traffic means you’ll squeeze past people coming down. The tower has its own entrance, opening hours and ticket, all separate from the cathedral. Check the official cathedral website on the day before you plan around it.

Mass, manners and the Domplatte crowds

This is a working cathedral first. Several Masses are said every day, and during services sightseeing in the nave is restricted, so people who’ve come to pray get priority. Plan your wander around the service times posted at the entrances and on the official website.

• When to come: the doors open at 6am every day and close at 8pm. Between 7am and 10am the nave is calmest, whether it’s a Tuesday or a Sunday.
• What to avoid: weekends between 11am and 7pm, when tour groups and day-trippers fill the aisles and the Domplatte outside.
• How to behave: speak quietly, men should take off their hats, and don’t eat or drink inside. Keep your shoulders reasonably covered.
• Bags: security staff may check bags at the doors, so a small daypack makes getting in quicker.
• Guided tours: official tours run in several languages and cover parts of the building you’d otherwise walk past. Book through the cathedral’s website.

Entry to the main church is free. If you light a candle or drop something into a collection box, the money goes towards the constant repairs.

Across the Rhine for the full facade

Up close, you can’t see the whole building at once. The fix is a fifteen-minute walk. Cross the Hohenzollern Bridge on its pedestrian walkway, where thousands of padlocks left by couples cover the railings. Trains rumble past beside you on the way across.

On the Deutz bank, the riverside steps give you the classic view: the cathedral’s spires above the bridge, with the Rhine in front. The KölnTriangle tower nearby has a rooftop viewing platform that looks back across the water. It works especially well at dusk, when the floodlights come on and the stone looks gold instead of black.

Kölsch and museums in the cathedral’s shadow

Coming down from the tower, you’re never more than a few minutes from a beer. Cologne’s traditional brewhouses cluster around the cathedral and the Altstadt, with Früh am Dom just across the square. They serve Kölsch, the city’s light top-fermented beer, in slim 0.2-litre glasses called Stangen.

The waiters, known as Köbes, keep replacing empty glasses until you put a beer mat on top of yours. That’s the signal you’re done.

If you’d rather see more art first, two museums sit right beside the cathedral:

• Museum Ludwig, for 20th-century art, with a large Pop Art collection.
• The Romano-Germanic Museum, for Roman Cologne. It’s built over the Dionysus Mosaic, which was found on the spot.

From any of these, the walk back to the Hauptbahnhof takes about two minutes. That makes the cathedral an easy stop even on a short layover.