Rheinauhafen

About this place

A narrow strip of ground running some two kilometres along the Rhine south of the old town, opened as a harbour in eighteen ninety-eight and once Cologne's most important working port. Its entrance eventually proved too narrow for modern vessels, traffic moved elsewhere, and the warehouses and cranes stood on for decades until redevelopment began in two thousand and two and finished around twenty eleven. The district's stars are its upended cranes: three buildings known as the Kranhaeuser, put up between two thousand and six and twenty ten, each about sixty-two metres tall, their inverted L shape a deliberate quotation of the harbour cranes that worked here — two of which were left standing beside them as monuments. Around them are reused old warehouses, and a marina for yachts where cargo boats once tied up. Visiting means walking, nothing more: no ticket, no hours, the quarter is always open. The best hour is before sunset when the light comes off the glass fronts, and the best angle for a photograph is from the opposite bank or the southern tip of the strip. The Chocolate Museum and the Sport Museum sit on the same spit and fold easily into the walk.