Cologne's Medieval City Wall

About this place

In the late twelfth century Cologne roughly doubled its area and threw around the enlarged city a wall some four kilometres long and about seven and a half metres high, with twelve fortified gates and more than fifty towers. It was the largest urban fortification in Germany at the time, and it fixed the shape of the old town for seven centuries. Its end came by council decision rather than by siege: from eighteen eighty-one the wall was sold off and largely pulled down so that the broad boulevards of the Ring could be driven along its line. That is why the Ring today traces the wall so exactly, and why its sections still carry the names of the old defences. The demolition was not total: four of the twelve gates survive, along with the mill tower at Gereonswall, the Bayenturm on the river, and three stretches of the wall itself. Visiting is a route rather than a site. The best single stop is the Gereonswall stretch north of the centre, where a continuous run of wall survives with a tower; from there you can walk or take a tram round the Ring to the Eigelstein gate in the north, the Hahnen gate at Rudolfplatz and the Severin gate in the south. There are no tickets and no hours, and it is all seen from the outside.