There live a little bit more than a million people in cologne, making it the biggest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the fourth biggest city in Germany. This is partly because Cologne incorporated small areas around it, making them districts of Cologne and effectively raising the population number.
The name cologne originates back to when Cologne was occupied by the Romans. The roman Queen Agrippina was born at the Rhine and made the city to an official city of the roman empire with the name Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium. Till today there are also still parts of the old roman city wall visible and a lot of things are still named the same from back in the day.
The dome is 157.38 meters high making it the third highest cathedral in the world. It took about 716 years until the dome was finished and it had a rough time throughout this and still requires a lot of maintenance, because the dome is made of sandstone which is vulnerable to weathering. Another valuable thing about the dome is, it stores the relics of the three kings (you know the three kings that came to Jesus birth by following a star and gave him all those riches).
Cologne also has the only language that you can drink. It’s called Kölsch and the language feels like an old mix of French and old German and the beer tastes amazing (honestly it is pretty good). The language is also one of the few dialects that are not feared to go extinct in Germany. The history of the beer goes back to around 1170 -1285.
The cologne emblem dates back to 1475 and it is probably the reason that red and white is a typical colour scheme for Cologne. The emblem is red and white, because Cologne was a founder of the German Hanse and red and white were the colours of the Hanse so it was taken over for this emblem. Do you remember the three kings I mentioned earlier? Yes, they are represented by the three golden crowns. The black drops represent the holy virgin Ursula and the virginal ten women that travelled with her. The legend says, they were coming back from a pilgrim to Rome and were murdered by Attila the Hun in Cologne.
The fifth time of the year starts on the 11th of November at 11:11 am. If you are confused now what I mean with fifth season, don’t worry I am talking about carnival. Carnival is a really big tradition in Cologne that is celebrated heavily each year, if you get the chance to visit Cologne by this time of the year, just do it, the atmosphere is amazing.
AloJapan.com