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The tourist office, across from the cathedral, can make hotel bookings for you for the same night, at a cost of €3 per booking. If you plan to be in town for Karneval, be sure to reserve a room well in advance.
A futuristic 50s-era office building has been transformed into a stylish, space-age-themed hotel, topped with a Mediterranean restaurant and bar offering superb city views. Open-plan rooms are more sedately decorated than the lobby and feature good-sized bathrooms with rainforest showers and freestanding tubs in upper categories.
One of few medieval houses along the riverbank to survive World War II bombings, this family-run inn enjoys an unbeatable location overlooking the river and right by Gross St. Martin. The hotel's quaintly furnished rooms are far from luxurious, but the place wins points for its history and reasonable prices. Ancient wooden beams grace some of the older rooms, but claustrophobic guests are advised to take up quarters in the "new" rooms. The inn's antique restaurant downstairs offers authentic Rhenish flair and spruced-up versions of traditional German dishes.
Old Master paintings, including a Van Dyck, grace this 1863 hotel's sumptuous Empire-style lobby, while Gobelins tapestries hang in the ballroom; the rooms are spacious, and the deluxe category of rooms melds old-world elegance with modern sophistication.
The rooms in this former monastery in the Belgian Quarter are spare but not spartan, though a startlingly realistic sculpture of a bishop, sitting in the reception area, serves as a constant reminder of the building's ecclesiastic origins. Modern paintings by Cologne artists adorn the walls of the hotel, on a quiet street lined with ginkgo trees. The rooms are not huge but are well kept, and the atmosphere is airy. The smartly appointed restaurant Et Cetera serves upscale Mediterranean cuisine and has delightful garden seating.
This designer hotel with classic modern furnishings has a strong following among artists and art dealers, as well as with the musicians who come to play at the nearby Stadtgarten venue.
The best things about this small, unassuming, family-run hotel are its immaculate housekeeping—the very model of German fastidiousness—and the price (small single rooms with shared bath are very inexpensive).
The 19th-century former city archives are now home to this sophisticated, art-filled design hotel. Rooms are done up in a sleek modernist style, with pricier suites featuring vaulted ceilings and views of the tranquil church square through enormous Gothic windows.
What used to be Europe's tallest water tower is now a stylish 11-story boutique hotel that was recently renovated and reopened in late 2021 as part of Hilton's Curio Collection. Rooms are done up in a contemporary fashion, and some duplex suites offer cathedral views.
