Brüsseler Platz

This guide to Brüsseler Platz in Cologne opens with a strange fact: the Cologne archdiocese has now lost the same lawsuit over this patch of paving three times in a decade. It traces the square from a quiet churchyard built in 1889 around Saint Michael's church, through wartime bomb damage and a 1980s redesign as a tidy little park, to the night in 2005 when World Youth Day accidentally turned it into Cologne's favorite free outdoor bar. You'll hear about furious neighbors hauling the city to court in 2011, 2013 and 2019, and the shrinking kiosk hours that barely dented the crowds. Stand here after dark and see whether the plane trees are still standing over a party.