Cologne has been a city for two thousand years, and almost all of that history is packed into the short stretch between its cathedral and the river. This walk begins beneath the twin spires of Cologne Cathedral, steps out onto the railway bridge covered in lovers' padlocks, and then drops down into the Old Town, the Altstadt, past a Romanesque tower, what is often called the oldest town hall in Germany, and the medieval hall where the city has partied for centuries. It finishes on the bank of the Rhine at the Chocolate Museum. It is roughly two kilometers, a little more with the bridge, and one of the most compact self-guided walking tours you will find, with something to see every few steps.

Before you set off

The walking itself takes well under an hour, but give it a relaxed morning or afternoon, and longer if you climb the cathedral tower or spend time in the Chocolate Museum. Opening times and admission change, and the cathedral can close to visitors during services, so check before you go. The route is short and mostly flat, with cobbles in the Old Town and some steps down to the riverside. The cathedral is busiest in the middle of the day and on weekends, so an early start gives you the nave in something closer to peace. There is little shade along the river, so bring a hat in summer, and an umbrella any time of year, since the Rhineland is a damp place. Along the way you pass some of the city's famous old brewhouses, where the local beer, Kölsch, comes in small, slim glasses, and they make a natural break. Dress modestly enough for the churches, and keep your voice low inside them.

Cologne Cathedral

Stand on the square in front of the west front and tip your head back. The two spires rise about 157 meters, and when they were finished in 1880 they made this the tallest building in the world for a few years. It took 632 years to get there. The foundation stone was laid in 1248, to house what were believed to be the relics of the Three Kings, the wise men of the Christmas story, which an archbishop had brought from Milan in 1164. Work stopped in the early sixteenth century with the building half done, and for roughly four hundred years a wooden crane sat on top of the unfinished south tower, part of the city skyline. Then, in the early 1800s, the original medieval drawings for the facade turned up, one part in Darmstadt and another in Paris, and a wave of national enthusiasm carried the work to completion following the old plans. Inside, find the golden shrine of the Three Kings behind the high altar, the largest reliquary of its kind in the Western world, and the Gero Cross, a carved crucifix more than a thousand years old. In the south transept, look for Gerhard Richter's window of 2007, a shimmering grid of thousands of colored squares. During the Second World War the cathedral was struck by bombs many times and badly damaged inside, but its vaults and towers held while most of the old city around it was flattened. Today it is often called the most visited landmark in Germany. Before moving on, walk around the cathedral's east end and down the steps toward the river to the Hohenzollern Bridge, and step out onto it for a few minutes. Then come back, go down to the riverside promenade and walk south with the Rhine on your left. After about five minutes, turn right into the Old Town, and the big square tower with four slim turrets is straight ahead.

Great St. Martin Church

Great St Martin Church Cologne You are at the foot of Great St. Martin, Groß St. Martin, the church whose square crossing tower with four slender turrets at its corners anchors the riverside skyline. Before the cathedral's spires were finished, this tower was the landmark every boatman on the Rhine looked for. The ground beneath you has an unexpected history. In Roman times this spot was an island in the river, later joined to the bank, and the Romans built large storehouses here. Their walls survive in the excavations under the church. The building you see went up between the middle of the twelfth and the middle of the thirteenth centuries as the church of a Benedictine abbey. Like most of the old city, it was shattered in the war, and rebuilding took until the 1980s. Look around at the little lanes and squares of the Altstadt, and down toward the river where the narrow, brightly painted houses of the old fish market lean shoulder to shoulder. This is the heart of Cologne's brewhouse culture. In the traditional Kölsch halls, a waiter called a Köbes brings a fresh glass the moment yours is empty, and keeps doing so until you put your beer mat on top of the glass. Remember that rule. From the church, walk west through the lanes to the square called Alter Markt, about two minutes away, where the tall Gothic tower of the town hall rises at the edge of the square.

Historic Town Hall

Stand on Alter Markt and look up at the tower in front of you. This is the Historic Town Hall, the Rathaus, often called the oldest town hall in Germany, with a history going back around nine hundred years. The tower was built in the early fifteenth century, soon after the city's guilds took power from the old patrician families in 1396, and it was meant to show who now ran Cologne. Its niches hold more than a hundred stone figures of people who shaped the city, from archbishops and emperors to scholars and saints. Below the clock, look for a carved wooden head, the Platzjabbeck, which opens its mouth and sticks out its tongue at the crowd on the hour. Then walk around to the far side of the building, where the Renaissance loggia of the 1570s, a two-story arcade of fine stone arches, faces a square under which lie two thousand years of history. Excavations here have uncovered the palace of the Roman governor and the medieval Jewish quarter, with its ritual bath. An imperial decree of the year 321 mentions Jews in Cologne, the oldest written record of a Jewish community north of the Alps. That community was expelled from the city in 1424. A museum is being built over the site to tell its story. When you are ready, walk south from the town hall for about three minutes, to a long Gothic hall with battlements and turrets at its corners.