Long Cologne’s number one grand hotel, the Excelsior Hotel Ernst has presided over Cathedral Square since 1863, a fixture in the heart of the city center. Over the last century and a half the stately old building has hosted all manner of VIPs passing through Cologne, from statesmen on down, and today finds it very much in fighting form. Upstairs the rooms and suites are outfitted with crisp reproduction furnishings, rich fabrics and all the requisite modern amenities, from sound-proofed windows to wi-fi. Many of the rooms have views across the square toward Cologne’s famous Dom cathedral, but iconic views or not, the feeling at every level is timeless. Hanse Stube, the hotel’s locally-influenced French restaurant, and taku, a modern 
East Asian restaurant with a MICHELIN Star, are both local favorites. And the Charles Bar is precisely the sort of classic mahogany-paneled bar you’d expect from a traditional hotel like the Excelsior, all the more charming for being something of a throwback. A well-equipped fitness center, sauna and steam bath, meanwhile, bring us happily back to the present.