Zündorfer Groov

This guide to Zundorfer Groov in Cologne starts with a stretch of the Rhine that was never supposed to see a ship unload. After Cologne won the staple right in 1259, forcing river traffic to sell its cargo inside the city walls, merchants a few miles downstream began quietly working around it, using a sandbank the locals called the Groov. You'll hear how the workaround held for nearly six centuries, why a statue of the patron saint of bargemen still stands on the local market square, and what changed for the city's monopoly in 1831. Look for that statue before you reach the water.