Basilica of St. Ursula, Cologne

A Romanesque church built over an ancient burial ground, the Basilica of St. Ursula is one of Cologne's twelve great Romanesque churches and among its most macabre and memorable. It rises on the northern edge of the old town, above a late Roman cemetery whose bones shaped its identity.

The church is dedicated to Saint Ursula, a legendary British princess said to have been martyred at Cologne with a company of virgin companions, a number that medieval retellings inflated to eleven thousand. The discovery of large quantities of human remains near the site fed the cult, and the church became a major reliquary shrine. The core of the building is Romanesque, from around the twelfth century, with a Gothic choir and a baroque interior added over time.

Its most extraordinary feature is the Golden Chamber, the Goldene Kammer, a reliquary room whose walls are entirely covered with human bones arranged in patterns, inscriptions and even words, interspersed with gilded busts holding relics. Few interiors in Europe present death and devotion so vividly. Rows of decorated reliquary busts and shrines fill the church with the accumulated piety of centuries.

Set slightly away from the cathedral crowds, St. Ursula rewards visitors seeking the deeper, stranger layers of Cologne's Christian past. Entry to the church is generally free, while a small fee is usually charged for the Golden Chamber, which keeps limited hours. The surrounding streets belong to the medieval town within the ring road, close to the main station and the Rhine. For anyone interested in Romanesque architecture or the intensity of medieval relic culture, it is one of the city's essential churches.