The two town houses that make up this very old-fashioned and atmospheric hotel stand on a corner of a historic square, right on the Rhine in one of the busiest sections of the Altstadt. On the ground floor there’s a long-established wine restaurant, somewhat unusual in beer-drinking Cologne. The rooms differ according to what building you’re in. The “newer” one has rooms created in the 1960s—comfortable but pretty plain. Rooms in the older building are also fairly basic but not lacking in a kind of creaky-floored, old-fashioned charm, some with beamed ceilings (the one at the top still has the crane that was once used to haul goods and furniture up and down). Most of the small bathrooms have showers; a few have tubs, too. You can easily walk everywhere in the Altstadt from here. Just be aware that voices and laughter from the surrounding restaurants can go on until after midnight. Alas, no wifi is offered.