Cologne is actually one of the oldest cities in Europe. It was started by the Roman empire as some kind of wartime tactical experiment on how to cram as many people into a single place and at the same time keeping up the appearance and feeling of a boring, little village, thus effectively cloaking the size of the city from the Teutonic eye. In spite of the Roman empire long gone, the experiment seems to be continued until our times. Hence, Cologne’s key landmarks to catch the traveller’s eye are:

• A friggin’ huge church
• Deep orange tans
• Spikey, geled haircuts with blonde streaks
• Clothing with tacky prints, like “Ed Hardy”

Apart from that huge friggin’ catholic death star, Cologne could be described as a typical German town: Looking for a shopping area that, in good German fashion, consists exclusively of mobile phone stores, run-of-the-mill clothing chains, and interchangeable “concept” bistros and cafes with awful food and beverages? Check. An area close to the city center, where some “Altbau” houses have survived WWII and are now being rented out at ridiculous prices to the masses of super-individual, non-conformist German 20- and 30-somethings who are still considering themselves “alternative” while ruling German culture since decades? Check. A place for the “wrong type of Germans”, who don’t work in “media” and think “Jack Wolfskin” is the hottest clothing brand to wear? Check. So, you might wonder, does Cologne have any unique feature that makes it worth writing a City-Special for?

Ladies and Gentleman, let me introduce you to the undisputed capital and breeding ground of German Guido culture. Taking a short stroll through Cologne, you will encounter more Guidos and Guidettes than in any other German city. A quick count on a normal day resulted in a Guido to non-Guido ratio of 4:1, which has the funny side effect that in Cologne, you will be considered lame when you do not sport spikey geled hair, do not pop your collar, do nothave a year-round deep, orange-ish tan, or do notreek of, well, cheap cologne - instead of the other way around.

Cologne people are always striving to take the Guidoism to new frontiers: When in the beginning it was considered sufficient to have a tattoo on your skin, Cologne people took tattooing to their clothing long before Ed Hardy was even heard of. Never running out of creative ideas, advanced Cologne people have started to take the “tribal tattoo” love to their cars.

The Guido lifestyle pervades all of Cologne’s social classes. Some Cologne people even turned what would be considered a detriment to one’s career in any other place into fully-fledged celebrity stardom. They succeeded by exporting the German Guido look into the whole world. Some famous exponents are football players Lukas Podolski and Tim Wiese, and last but not least the world’s most freshwater “supermodel” ever, Heidi Klum, who were all born and raised in or around Cologne.

No piece about Cologne would be complete without a mention of the somewhat famous Cologne carnival. When you are in the pitiable situation to ask a Cologne person about the carnival, you will hear the following sentence “You will either love it or hate it, but you should have tried it once”. After which they will teach you about how great and important it is for “everybody to come together to party for carnival”. What they do not tell you is that during the carnival days (which take place in early February to make sure it’s really cold outside and raining), your main concern will be to dodge all those fat 50-something unemployed drunk hags out on the Cologne streets, who are out hunting victims to make a bützen-move on. Which means slobbering beer and vomit over someone’s face while expecting that person to love it and return the favour.