Truly one of the best bathhouses in Europe.

I went to the sauna together with two friends, after excellent experiences with Phoenix Essen. But immediately upon arrival and walking down the stairs to the basement into the locker area, I got into trouble. People were SMOKING everywhere, and I'm quite asthmatic resulting in a shortness of breath - besides that is unhealthy. I expected that it was an incident, but walking through your facility I encountered many smoking men. All the 'this is a non-smoking area' signs confused me, so I asked the bar staff. They explained it was allowed to smoke in almost the whole basement, but 'upstairs' (basically, the bar and a small sauna) was smoke free. On their website and on some brochure comparing all Phoenix sauna's, it's not mentioned that smoking is allowed in almost the whole complex. Even more, both state that there is a "Smoking lounge", so I expected that smokers could smoke in there and outside of this lounge, smoking was not allowed. The sauna itself is quite filthy, with everywhere condoms and paper on the ground. It was quite cold, not pleasant if you're only wearing a towel. Compared to Phoenix Essen, Cologne is quite outdated. The men visiting the sauna were diverse, but most of them immediately grab your dick even before making contact. Not a very relaxed atmosphere. I couldn't stay there for long. I asked for a refund, but they said that that was not possible. It's better to visit another sauna in Cologne, or drive to Essen!

THE bathhouse of cologne - a must see.