Living in Sülz, Cologne

Sülz belongs to the Lindenthal Stadtbezirk, southwest of the inner city. It borders Neustadt-Süd to the north, Lindenthal to the northwest, Zollstock and Klettenberg to the southeast and the neighbouring town of Hürth-Efferen to the southwest. Around thirty-seven thousand people live in its five square kilometres. Three long straight arterial roads of Roman origin - Zülpicher, Luxemburger and Berrenrather Straße - run through it towards the centre, and they set the shape of everything else.

What it is

A dense residential Veedel with an unusually mixed building stock for Cologne. There are rows of former two-storey workers' flats, large cooperative estates from the 1920s built around generous planted courtyards, plain post-war blocks, expensive new apartments, and loft conversions in former factory buildings. Nothing is monumental and very little is ugly. The Beethovenpark, laid out to plans by the city garden director Fritz Encke, is the main green space, and the Gürtel ring road with its own green strip runs along the eastern side. Kriel, in the west, is a named sub-area with its own quieter character. Several university institutes sit inside the Stadtteil, and the Universitätsklinikum campus is directly on its northern rim.

Who lives here

Students, doctoral candidates, hospital and university staff, and the large group of people who came here as students and never left - now in their thirties and forties, often with a child. Shared flats are normal and long-established, and many of them have been passing rooms from one tenant to the next for years. There is also a settled older population in the cooperative housing. The result is a Veedel that is young without being transient: a lot of shared flats, but also a lot of people who have lived on the same street for a decade.

What it's like during the day

Ordinary daily life at a comfortable volume. Sülzburgstraße is the local high street and behaves like one: a supermarket, a drugstore chain, two old bakeries, a butcher, a delicatessen, a bookshop, bike shops, hairdressers, a florist, cafés with pavement tables. Zülpicher Straße carries the student traffic north towards the campus and the Neustadt; Luxemburger and Berrenrather Straße carry the commuters. The Beethovenpark is used all day, and the Gürtel green strip works as a running and cycling route. The Universitätsklinikum on the northern edge sets the daytime rhythm for a whole corner of the district.

What it's like in the evening

Sociable rather than loud. The bars are neighbourhood bars: Kneipen with regulars, student pubs around the Zülpicher Straße end, wine bars and small restaurants along Sülzburgstraße and around Auerbachplatz. It is the kind of place where you go out on your own street rather than travelling for it. For clubs and late nights people take the Stadtbahn ten minutes north into the Kwartier Latäng or the Ring. By midnight most of Sülz is quiet, which is exactly why a lot of ex-students moved here from Neustadt-Süd.

Getting around

Three Stadtbahn lines serve the Stadtteil. Line 9 runs along Zülpicher Straße with stops at Universität, Uniklinik Köln, Weyertal, Mommsenstraße and Sülz Hermeskeiler Platz. Line 13 runs the Gürtel ring at Zülpicher Straße/Gürtel, Euskirchener Straße, Berrenrather Straße/Gürtel and Sülzgürtel. Line 18 comes up Luxemburger Straße through Sülzgürtel, Weißhausstraße and Arnulfstraße. The main university campus at Albertus-Magnus-Platz is just over the boundary in Lindenthal, five to ten minutes on foot from the northern Sülz streets and one stop on line 9 from the middle of the district - this is the practical reason people choose Sülz. The centre is ten to fifteen minutes by tram. The ground is flat, and cycling to the campus or the Neustadt is faster than any tram.

Eating and shopping

Sülzburgstraße covers most of what a household needs without a car, and the discounters and full-range supermarkets on Berrenrather and Luxemburger Straße cover the rest. Bakeries are old-school and numerous. Eating out means Italian trattorias, Asian counters, döner and falafel near the student end, and a handful of more ambitious kitchens around Auerbachplatz. Prices sit below the Neustadt and well below Lindenthal proper.

When NOT to pick it

Do not pick it if you want nightlife outside the door: the good bars here close early by Cologne standards and the clubs are all somewhere else. Do not pick it if you want a bargain - Sülz has been popular for twenty years and the rent reflects it, even if it still undercuts Lindenthal and the Belgisches Viertel. Do not pick it if you want architectural drama or a riverside walk, because neither exists here, and do not count on parking. If you want the same student proximity for less money, look east to Zollstock; if you want more space and more quiet, look south to Klettenberg; if you want noise and bars at the door, look north to Neustadt-Süd.

Sülz is the right choice if you are a student, a researcher or a hospital worker who wants to reach the campus on foot or by bike, live on a street with a real high street on it, and still sleep at night. For anyone moving to Cologne to study or to work at the university, it is the most obvious place to start looking.