The Old Town is an area of colourful contrasts; brash street vendors rub shoulders with flea market merchants near the exclusive shops of Cologne's renowned antique dealers. Summer is the high season; autumn brings a more intimate clam, a whiff of wood smoke, a suggestion of frost, a hint of the Christmas to come. Although an automatic mechanism sets the bells on the town hall tower chiming at the midday and at five in the afternoon, in the festive season the city bell-ringer sets off the carillon on the town hall tower for a special rendering of Christmas carols. This is the time to relate stories and legends, like the old tale of the tailor's wife who lay in wait to watch the Heinzelmännchen, or elves, finishing off garments at dead of night, a story commemorated by the charming late nineteenth-century Heinzelmännchen fountain to the south of the cathedral precinct.
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riverside restaurants  |
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overlooking the Altstadt  |
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pausing for a picture  |
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(Inside the Whale) 
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Haxenhaus zum Rheingarten (restaurant with amazing pig knuckles)  |
