A whisker away from the Rathaus there’s a museum about perfume in the very rooms where Eau de Cologne was invented in the 18th century.
You’ll be inside the oldest intact perfume factory in the world, belonging to the Italian-born perfumer Johann Maria Farina whose invention made waves in the Rococo period and enhanced the city’s reputation.
You can only visit on a 45-minute guided tour, during which you’ll enter the vaults where a cedar barrel has survived for 300 years and see a copper still and laboratory equipment that are faithful replicas of the kind Farina used.