Two churches in Cologne. Cologne Cathedral has 4 tickets and tours to book; Great St Martin Church has 1 ticket or tour to book. The table and the two notes below put them side by side; the full pages have what to see, the ticket and the timing for each.
The cathedral is free to enter and there is no ticket for the nave, which surprises visitors to Germany's most visited landmark. Three things are paid for separately and cheaply: the tower climb, the treasury and, on some days, the guided tour that goes behind the high altar. The tower is the one to take: 533 steps up a spiral staircase in the south tower, past the bell chamber with the 24-tonne St Peter's Bell, the largest free-swinging bell in the world, to a platform at 97 metres.
The church is free to enter. What costs a small sum is the guided descent into the excavations beneath it, which show Roman warehouses, a swimming pool and the remains of the island the church was built on; those tours run at fixed times, in German and sometimes English, and are the most interesting thing here. Walking tours of the Romanesque churches of Cologne include Great St Martin and cost several times that;
