The statue tower
Over 120 figures from two millennia clothing the Gothic tower.
Arminia โ CC BY-SA 3.0 ยท Dietmar Rabich โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Superbass โ CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท Superbass โ CC BY-SA 4.0
Under the tower a wooden face opens its mouth and sticks out its tongue with every hour's chime โ an old jibe said to target the city's rivals or its own authorities; Cologne prides itself on its mocking spirit. Standing below at the hour is a beloved little ritual.
Only in a limited way โ it is a working seat of government: loggia and square are open, the interior via occasional tourist-office tours or open days. Its main value is exterior anyway.
Beneath the square itself lies the modern MiQua archaeological museum over Cologne's medieval Jewish quarter and the Roman governor's palace โ a descent worth its hour for archaeology lovers, entered right before the Rathaus.
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Cologne's Rathaus is Germany's oldest working city hall: documented since 1135, with the city's mayor still governing from the same building nearly nine centuries on. The complex is a blend of eras: a fifteenth-century Gothic tower, and an elegant sixteenth-century Renaissance loggia counted among Germany's finest in that style. The tower alone is a full gallery: more than a hundred and twenty statues of figures who shaped the city across two thousand years โ emperors, saints, scholars, even modern figures added in restoration. Beneath it hides Cologne's most famous joke: the "Platz Jabbeck", a wooden face that sticks out its tongue under the tower on the hour. The building is mainly an exterior sight, and that is enough; its square lies two steps from the cathedral and the Roman museum โ a short, rich stop inside any old-town walk.
Over 120 figures from two millennia clothing the Gothic tower.
A sixteenth-century arcade among German Renaissance architecture's finest.
The mocking face opening its mouth on the hour โ Cologne's old joke.
Rathausplatz, 50667 Cologne