The Mr Gay Europe 2019 delegates hit the ground running. Their stay in Cologne, Germany starts off with a tour of the city with Icelandic transfer Helgi as their guide. He’s been living in the area for almost 4 years now, and does the tour, in English, a couple times per week.
The guided tour started at the Hahnentorburg. The most important of the twelve gates that gave entrance to Cologne, was the west gate known as the Hahnentor. After their coronation in Aachen, German kings arrived in Cologne through this gate to revere the shrine of the Three Magi in the Cologne Cathedral. This gate was built between 1235 and 1240.
After this the tour took our delegates to amongst other thing the memorial of the German soldiers who had the courage to refuse to fight in the war.
The Roman Tower is part of the city wall built by the Romans and is today the only almost completely preserved tower of the former city fortification.
The pink triangle. A Homomonument for killed lgbt members during the Nazi regime.
Finally, the delegates visited the Cologne Cathedral.
All photos: Patrick Dähmlow, Robbie Lawlor and Coenie Kukkuk.