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| Things To Know
Old Town
Cafés and Taverns Karneval and Concerts Eau de Cologne Crazy Days |
Karneval and Concerts To see Cologne at its most boisterous, come before Easter for Carnival (Karneval) week. Precise dates change every year, but the fun always reaches its peak before Ash Wednesday, in time for the abstinence of Lent. On the Thursday before the seventh Sunday prior to Easter, the festival begins in a morning ceremony at Alter Markt (Old Market Square), and everyone gears up for the three “Crazy Days” (Tolle Tage) - Thursday, Sunday and Monday. There are costume balls at night, and more informal revelry on the streets and in the taverns. On Sunday there's a procession of floats, and on Monday a spectacular parade provides the lively and colorful climax. For the rest of the year, there is a choice of calmer entertainment at the city's main cultural centers. Concerts are performed at the Philharmonie, in the Wallraf-Richartz/Ludwig museums building on Bischofsgartenstrasse. Other concerts take place regularly in the city's churches, and are usually free. Opera is staged at the Opernhaus. Cologne has a famous puppet theater - the Puppenspiele - but dialogue is in the local Kölsch dialect. Listings for movies, theater and concerts are published in the magazines Kölner Illustrierte and StadtRevue, Köln Magazin. Nightclubs and discos are concentrated on the streets around Gross St. Martin; in the St. Severin quarter, Südstadt; and in the university quarter - the Quartier Lateng, in the southwest part of the city. |
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