Excelsior Hotel Ernst

The west front of Cologne Cathedral fills the windows on the Trankgasse side of the Excelsior Hotel Ernst. Carl Ernst opened the house in Cologne in 1863, while the cathedral was still a building site: the twin spires were only completed in 1880, seventeen years after his first guests checked in. Few hotels anywhere stand this close to a monument of that scale, and the relationship has shaped the house ever since.

History

Carl Ernst built beside the railway terminus of a Prussian garrison city that was turning into an industrial centre. Guests arriving by train found the hotel a hundred metres from the platforms, which is still the case. The Excelsior name was added in the early twentieth century, after the building had been enlarged. Cologne's old town was almost entirely destroyed in the Second World War; the hotel was badly damaged and rebuilt after 1945 on the same plot and under the same name. It has stayed in private hands and belongs to The Leading Hotels of the World. In a city that lost most of its pre-war fabric, a hotel trading on the same site since 1863 is a rarity.

Architecture and design

The building is listed as an architectural monument in North Rhine-Westphalia, with Franz Ahrens credited as its architect. It occupies the block between Trankgasse and the station forecourt, on the north side of the cathedral. The public rooms keep the vocabulary of a grand hotel of its generation: panelled walls, chandeliers, marble floors and heavy curtains, with the Hanse Stube opening off the hall. Successive refurbishments have modernised the bedrooms without stripping out the older rooms downstairs.

Rooms and suites

The house has around 130 rooms and suites, a modest count for a city hotel of this rank. Rooms on the Trankgasse side look straight at the cathedral, and the view at night, when the stonework is floodlit, is the reason regulars ask for that side. Rooms at the back face the station and the city.

Dining

Two restaurants carry the hotel's reputation. The Hanse Stube serves classic French cooking in a panelled dining room and has been a fixture of Cologne business lunches for decades. Taku, opened in 2006, draws on Japanese, Chinese and Thai kitchens and holds a Michelin star. The Piano Bar, off the lobby, is where Carnival societies and visiting executives meet over a drink. Kölsch, the local beer, is served in the traditional 0.2-litre glass.

Weddings and events

Eight function rooms take weddings, dinners and meetings. Civil ceremonies in Cologne are held at the Rathaus in the old town, a short walk away, and the cathedral is across the street, so the hotel sees a steady run of wedding receptions. For trade-fair visitors it is one S-Bahn stop from Koelnmesse: Köln Messe/Deutz station is on the far bank of the Rhine, over the Hohenzollern Bridge.

Location

The Excelsior Hotel Ernst is the luxury hotel in Cologne with the main station next door: ICE trains reach Frankfurt in about an hour, Frankfurt Airport in under an hour, and Eurostar services link Cologne with Brussels and Paris. Cologne Bonn Airport is roughly fifteen kilometres away, a quarter of an hour on the S19 from the station. Museum Ludwig and the Philharmonie are on the far side of the cathedral, and the Römisch-Germanisches Museum beside them was built over the Dionysus mosaic found in 1941 when an air-raid shelter was being dug. The Rhine embankment and the Altstadt, with its brewery taverns, are a few hundred metres further. In December the Christmas market fills Roncalliplatz beside the cathedral, and on Rosenmontag the Carnival parade passes through the centre.