This place was so interesting. Walking in an old Roman sewer is lots of fun! As for the artifacts, I couldn't read much coz most of it is in German but you get the idea anyway. Only €3.50 and lockers are free so you can put your heavy bag away for a while and just take your camera. Fascinating, at least for me!
What a great unexpected surprise to find the ruins of the Praetorium, a governors place of sorts, under the Köln Town Hall. When we purchased or ticket to the Roman-German Museum the clerk asked if we wanted a combined ticket with the Praetorium Ruins and after asking what these were and where they were we readily agreed. After our time in the Roemisch-Germanisches museum, we walked the block, perhaps a block and a half to the Praetorium where we discovered not only the ruins of a huge palace, but a small museum with recovered artifacts and even 100 meters of the original Roman Sewer to walk through, and no, the sewer is not still in use, so you can walk in confidence. Not only will you see the ruins of this once magnificent palace, but you will see evidence of a devastating earthquake and even damage from a WW2 arial "mine". Well worth the time and the opportunity to see some of the oldest parts of Köln.
This attraction was hard to locate, but was worth the effort. As others have pointed out there is little information available in English.
Beautiful roman artifacts, nice explanation and great friendly staff. A few more english translated information would be the only thing to be improved here. Wow!
Interesting only by its antiquity.Otherwise,there's no much to see.Only some walls ruins.You can visit also the remains of some roman sewers,very well preserved on a distance of over 100m.A combined ticket is available,granted you access to the Roman-German Museum also.
When people think of Cologne, they tend to thing of the Catherdral. But Cologne's history goes back a lot further--to Roman times. Interestingly a lot of the newer buildings seem to be build where their counterparts were in Roman times. Thus the catherdral is built on an old Roman temple complex, and the City Hall or Rathaus is built on top of the Roman Praetorium. This side encloses the ruins of the foundation, and you can clearly see where an earthquake hit ca. 780 AD, which is why the building was abandoned. There is a small museum with artifacts (better ones are in the Roman-German museum by the Catherdral, and you can walk though the roman water tunnel, which leads off from the building underground. If you like Roman history, this is worth doing. I rate this three stars as it will not be to everyone's taste. It probbaly is not for children, though they will enjoy exploring the water tunnel. When they open up the surrounding archeologial site, this will be a bigger attraction.
Worth a visit before or after the Roman museum. Well illustrates the extent of the archeology under the city streets. Also suggests that the stone used to build the Dom etc didn't have to travel far.
Interesting. A lot of the information is in German but it doesn't matter too much. If you are a student take your student card as you get in much cheaper
The museum was laid out nicely. However, everything was in German, so I wasn't able to absorb any information. It would be nice is they would offer an English translation and/or multilanguage booklets.
Nice reminder of the long history of the city, presenting the ruins of a Roman palace from the 4th century. A quiet place to visit away from the busy city center.