Germany's oldest cathedral city — a Gothic nave taller than a 15-storey building, the world's best-selling perfume born here in 1709, and a Carnival that fills 4km of Rhine riverbanks with 1.5 million costumed people every February
Cologne (Köln) is Germany's fourth-largest city (1.1 million) on the Rhine River in North Rhine-Westphalia. The Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom) — begun 1248, completed 1880, UNESCO World Heritage — is the supreme example of High Gothic architecture: twin spires at 157m were the world's tallest structure from 1880 to 1884, and the medieval Shrine of the Three Kings is the largest reliquary in the western world. The city is also the home of Eau de Cologne (4711 brand, since 1792, though the original recipe dates to 1709), the Chocolate Museum (Chocolate Museum on the Rhine, 1993), and the Cologn…
Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (CCAA) was founded as a Roman colony in 50 CE by Emperor Claudius at the request of his wife Agrippina the Younger, who was born there. It was the capital of the Roman province of Germania Inferior and one of the largest cities north of the Alps in antiquity. The archbishops of Cologne were prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire, making medieval Cologne one of Europe's most powerful cities; its university (founded 1388) is one of Germany's oldest. The city was 90% destroyed by Allied air raids between 1942 and 1945 — the Cathedral survived (possibly delibe…