"Bimmelbahn" Mini Train

- with the Choco, Zoo, or Christmas Market Express

Dear passengers, all aboard – it rattles and shakes and carries nostalgia value: but it remains a city tour. Or several, on different routes and even during Christmas time. This refers to a tourist tour with the long-established Bimmelbahn, which is a fixed part of Cologne's tourist attractions and takes you leisurely through the Cologne city center – either to the Chocolate Museum or in the other direction to the Cologne Zoo.

When you purchase a tour ticket, you disembark at the central hub and later continue with another Bimmelbahn, as a hop-on-hop-off tour. An audio moderation accompanies you on all trips and routes.

Interested in the history of chocolate: the Choco-Express

The Choco-Express, with its stop at the Choco Museum, operates almost year-round. From the Cathedral, it meanders through the lanes of Cologne's Old Town, past Romanesque churches and breweries, towards the Chocolate Museum at Rheinauhafen. This cultural history and specialty museum offers the entire world of the tempting indulgence of chocolate, with the world's most comprehensive exhibition, a walk-in the tropical house, and the famous chocolate fountain. 

Combine this attraction with two others: Nearby are the Sports and Olympic Museum and the Kranhäuser in the former old port, which today marks a modern and architecturally interesting district in Cologne.
On the return trip, you pass the former Cologne Market Hall, the Gürzenich, today a stronghold of Cologne’s session carnival.

Going to the zoo with the kids? The Zoo-Express

With the Zoo-Express, families and other excursionists ride along the Rhine to the Cologne Zoo. Here, in Germany's third-largest zoological garden, you'll find the largest elephant park north of the Alps, an aquarium with crocodiles, piranhas, and snakes, the rainforest house with a free-flight aviary for birds, or hippos and crocodiles in the Hippodome, as well as gorillas and other great apes in the Jungle House. Incidentally, the zoo borders – if you are more interested, or also, in the serene beauty of botany – directly on the Cologne Flora, the botanical garden of Cologne with about 12,000 plant species from all over the world, as well as a subtropical house, garden café, and restaurant.

During the second part of the tour, you pass the Wine Museum, the Agnesviertel, and the Eigelstein with its lively and multicultural scene, before returning to Cologne Cathedral.

Zoo-Express + Cable Car: "Himmel & Äd" Ticket

At the stops, you can also purchase the "Himmel & Äd" Ticket for the Zoo-Express, which is valid for a ride with Wolters Bimmelbahn to the zoo as well as for a cable car ride across the Rhine to the Rheinpark – and back again.

Wonderful Christmas: with the Christmas Market Express

Cologne's Christmas markets shine annually at many locations in the city, be it at the Cologne Cathedral, Heumarkt, Neumarkt, or Stadtgarten. The Christmas Market Express runs in the weeks leading up to Christmas Eve and takes you through the decorated streets and Old Town to four of Cologne's Christmas markets.

Also available for individual bookings: the Bimmelbahn for events

Each Bimmelbahn offers 50 seats – and it can be booked for excursions, bowling tours, or company parties. You can also book Wolters Bimmelbahn for a wedding celebration.