Every design for Köln

Have you noticed how people from Cologne say the name of their city – Kölle, in their own Kölsch – as if it were the name of an old friend? The city on the Rhine is the fourth largest in Germany and the biggest in North Rhine-Westphalia, but to those who live here it is above all a set of neighbourhoods, familiar towers and well-worn routes home.

Many carry one particular memory of the place: the first sight of the Kölner Dom from a train crossing the river, the noise and colour of carnival, the scent of Eau de Cologne, which has been made here since the early eighteenth century. The Duftmuseum im Farina-Haus tells that story. Elsewhere, the Römerturm and the medieval gatehouses of the Eigelsteintorburg and the Severinstorburg recall a city that began as a Roman colony and grew into a free imperial city and a Hanseatic trading town. St. Gereon is one of the twelve Romanesque churches that shape the skyline almost as much as the cathedral.

Locals know the walk along the left bank at dusk, when the cathedral turns dark against the sky and the lights on the bridges come on one by one.