Cologne
Germany
A cathedral that took six hundred years, beer served in small glasses until you say stop, and the Rhine going past
Photos by Dominik Kuhn, Soroush H. Zargarbashi, Florian Schmetz and Keanu K on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Germany
May to September, and February for Carnival — book that one a year ahead
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 86mm in Jul
Where it is
50.94°N, 6.96°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
A week easily- Climb the cathedral tower for the city and the river at once
- Drink Kölsch in a brewhouse and learn to stop the waiter
- Walk the Hohenzollern bridge among the padlocks
- See Museum Ludwig, which is better than its reputation outside Germany
- Come for Carnival, or deliberately avoid it
Cologne travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Germany
Mid-rangeEuro country, and cash still matters — the brewhouses where you will spend the evening frequently take nothing else, and the waiter keeps the tally in pencil on your beer mat.
ATMs & cards
Sparkasse, Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank machines are the ones to use and are normally free on their side. Decline the conversion. Avoid the independent machines on the square in front of the cathedral, which exist because that is where lost people stand.
Avoid these
- Euronet
- the machines on the cathedral square
Use these instead
- Sparkasse
- Deutsche Bank
- Commerzbank
The brewhouses keep your tally in pencil on the beer mat and want cash at the end of it.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Germany
Reasonably safeRelaxed and walkable by day. Pickpocketing concentrates on the cathedral square, the Hauptbahnhof and the trains to the airport, and the station forecourt, Neumarkt and Ebertplatz have an open drug scene that makes them unpleasant rather than threatening after dark. Carnival is enormous, drunk and generally good-natured, but it is also when most of the year's reported incidents happen — go, and keep a hand on your things. The old town and the Belgian Quarter are fine into the evening.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (8 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- the Hauptbahnhof forecourt, Neumarkt and Ebertplatz after dark — an open drug scene, unpleasant rather than aimed at you, and the pickpockets who work it
- the Ringe late on weekend nights — the concentration of drinking; pickpocketing rises sharply during Karneval
- the cathedral steps in a crowd — the standing place for bag-snatching in the city
Karneval in February is a week of public drinking on a scale nothing else in Germany matches. Everything about the city changes for it..
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Germany visa rules
No visa needed
Freedom of movement — no time limit, and no visa. Bring a passport or national ID card.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 90 days
90 days within any 180-day period, counted across the whole Schengen area, not per country. ETIAS, a paid online authorisation, is being introduced for these passports — check the official link for whether it applies to your travel dates.
Visa required in advance€90 (Schengen short-stay visa)
A Schengen short-stay visa is applied for before travel, at the consulate of your main destination.
How to get it: Apply at the consulate or visa centre of the country you will spend most time in, typically 15 working days ahead and no more than six months before travel.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Health & emergencies all of Germany
Excellent and cheapRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Routine vaccinations up to date
- Tick-borne encephalitis for the south (Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg) if walking in forests
Getting treated
EU/EEA and Swiss visitors are treated on the same terms as residents with an EHIC or GHIC card; UK visitors use a GHIC. Everyone else pays, and travel insurance is worth having for the repatriation cover rather than the treatment.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
Very goodKölsch is served in 200ml glasses by a waiter called a Köbes, who replaces it without asking until you put the mat on top of the glass. Do not order a Düsseldorf Altbier here as a joke; it has been done. Halve Hahn is a rye roll with cheese, despite meaning half a chicken.
Nightlife
Kölsch in 200ml glasses that keep arriving until you put the mat on top, and a brewhouse culture that has nothing to do with clubs.
- the Brauhäuser in the Altstadt — Früh, Päffgen, Sion — the reason to be here
- the Belgisches Viertel — the bar quarter proper, and where the city drinks
- Zülpicher Strasse — students, cheap and loud
- Ehrenfeld — live music and the least touristed of them
Closing: Brauhäuser to midnight or one, bars to three, clubs later. Nothing here starts as late as Berlin.
A beer in a bar: €2.20–2.80 for the small glass
During Karneval in February the whole city drinks in the street for a week, and no rule above applies.
Getting around
Easy and cheap- UberWorks here
- BoltWorks here
- FREE NOWWorks here
Uber brokers licensed hire cars rather than its own drivers
- Against a taxi
- Roughly level with the meter, and Germany is one of the few places where a taxi is sometimes cheaper.
The Rückkehrpflicht — hire cars must return to base between jobs — is why a car can be ten minutes away in a small city.
Time zone and your working day
Europe/Berlin — 6 hours ahead of you
2 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 09:00–11:00 your time, 15:00–17:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 03:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 03:00–11:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Germany
Why these are Germany's numbers and not Cologne's
Home broadband — Good. Comfortable for two people working, streaming in the evening, large downloads. Broadband here runs at 79% of the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Fast. Enough to work from a cafe or a beach on a hotspot all day. Mobile runs at 2.7× the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Cologne, so these are medians for all of Germany. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Germany, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
German
- HelloGuten TagGOO-ten tahk
- PleaseBitteBI-tuh
- Thank youDankeDAN-kuh
- Yes / NoJa / Neinya / nine
4 more phrases
- Excuse meEntschuldigungent-SHOOL-di-gung
- How much is it?Was kostet das?vas KOS-tet das
- The bill, pleaseDie Rechnung, bittedee REKH-nung
- Cheers!Prost!prohst
Religion
Split Catholic and Protestant, and largely secular
The south is Catholic, the north Protestant, and a growing share is neither. Church tax is a real thing residents pay.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Be punctual — arriving late without warning is genuinely rude
- Separate your rubbish; recycling rules are taken seriously
- Make eye contact when toasting, and say prost
- Carry cash; plenty of bars and restaurants still refuse cards
Don't
- Do not jaywalk, especially with children present — people will tell you off
- Do not make Nazi references or salutes, even as a joke; several are criminal offences
- Do not walk in the red-paved bike lanes
- Do not expect small talk from strangers; directness is not coldness
Where to stay in Cologne
No Holistay rentals in Cologne yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Cologne on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Cologne Bonn CGN
15 minfrom the airport· 15 km as the crow flies
15 min by S-Bahn — one of the shortest airport runs in Europe.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
