Cologne was founded in the 1st century as the Roman Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium.
It was taken by the Franks in the 5th century and became an important city of Medieval Germany, the seat of an Archbishop and a Prince-Elector.
The Cologne Cathedral, a Gothic masterpiece more than 600 years in the making. The cathedral is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe. It was conceived to house the relics of the Three Kings, acquired in 1164 by Rainald of Dassel, the Archbishop of Cologne. On August 14, 1880, the cathedral was finally completed, 632 years after construction had begun. In 1996, the cathedral was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List of culturally important sites. Today, the cathedral is among Germany’s most popular landmarks, visited by an average of 20,000 people per day. Visitors can climb the 509 stone steps of the spiral staircase to a platform 322 feet above the ground that affords them a scenic view over the Rhine.