Germany Guide
North Rhine-Westphalia
Gross St Martin
Address: Alter Markt
Opening time: Tues– Fri 10am– noon & 3–5pm, Sat 10am–12.30pm, 1.30–5pm, Sun 2–4pm
One of Cologne's great architectural glories is the collection of twelve Romanesque churches that have survived – albeit variously battered and rebuilt – to the present day. The most imposing, if not necessarily the most beautiful, is Gross St Martin, south of the Dom, a former Benedictine monastery whose monumental square tower was the dominant feature of the city's skyline until the Dom acquired its towers. The narrow lanes that huddle around it convey the atmosphere of medieval Cologne better than anywhere else in the city, though many of the Martinsviertel's "medieval" houses only date from the mid-1930s, when the Nazis spruced up the hitherto unsanitary and poverty-ridden quarter. Genuinely old specimens include the much-photographed Stapelhäuschen in front of the church. Altogether more splendid are the Renaissance Haus St Peter on Heumarkt and the incredibly tall, double-gabled Zur Brezel/Zur Dorn on Alter Markt, which dates from 1580 to 1582.