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Above: Cologne's and probably Germany's most famous architectural structure: The Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral).
(official name: Hohe Domkirche St. Peter und Maria).
The gothic styled cathedral is 157m/516f tall (northern tower: 157,38m; southern tower 157,31m),
144,58m/474f long and 86,25m/283f wide.
Work on the church (choir section) began in 1248, and took with interruptions over 600 years.
It was finally completed in 1880.
From 1880-1886, it was the tallest structure in the world.
It's the church with the second tallest (Gothic) church towers in the world;
the tallest being the Ulmer Münster (162m/531f) from Ulm, another German city.
The cathedral is dedicated to Saints Peter and Mary.
The Dom attracts tourist from all over the globe; about 6 to 7 million each year!

During WWII the cathedral suffered 14 aerial bombhits, but didn't collapse;
the two towers kept on standing. Reconstruction after the war took until 1956.
There is a viewing area about 98m above the ground;
this is accessible by a spiral staircase with 509 steps.
The Dom is also home to several works of art.
The most celebrated being the Sarcophagus of the Magi,
a large gilded sarcophagus dating from the 13th century,
and the largest reliquary in the Western world.
It is thought to hold the remains of the Three Wise Men,
whose bones and 2000 years old clothes were discovered at the opening of the shrine in 1864.

The cathedral has twelve church bells.
The first was the Dreikönigenglocke (bell of the three kings), cast in 1418, 3.4 tons of weight, installed in 1437.
Two of them, the 'Pretiosa' (10 tons), at that time the largest bell in the occident,
and the 'Speciosa' (4.3 tons) were installed in 1448, and are there since then.
The largest of them, the St. Petersglocke (bell of St Peter), was cast in 1922, weighs 24 tons and is the largest free-swinging bell in the world.
In 1996, the cathedral was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List of culturally important sites.




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