Cologne, Germany
Eau de Traffic Jam
"Smells great, drives terribly"
Official Coat of Arms
A shield bearing the twin spires of the Dom looming improbably over a tiny confused tourist with a map, flanked by two bottles of 4711 rampant, with a Rhine barge sailing serenely below a motto scroll reading 'We Invented The Smell, Not The Traffic'.
TripAdvisor Review
★★★★☆ 4/5
"The Dom is genuinely breathtaking and I spent an hour just staring up at it in the shadow of the enormous train station, which is convenient because you'll spend another hour trying to find your platform. Carnival season turned my hotel lobby into a costumed rave at 6am, which was fun once and never again. The Rhine promenade is lovely for a walk if you can ignore the smell of eau de cologne being sold to tourists on every corner for triple what it's worth in the actual perfume shop down the road. Solid city, questionable footbridge love-lock weight limits."— Barry Fenwick, Droitwich Spa
Property Listing
Charming Rhine-adjacent metropolis offering UNESCO World Heritage views from your future balcony, excellent rail connectivity (once you locate your platform), and a vibrant carnival culture that guarantees your street will be unrecognisable for one glorious, deafening week a year!
Twinned With
Grasse — Both towns have built an entire identity around a smell you can't actually see.
Supporting Evidence
Cologne Cathedral took over 600 years to complete, partly because construction stopped for four centuries and everyone just left the crane on top as a landmark.