The concept of the event is simple: buses take midnight art lovers from museum to museum. Forty galleries participating in the "long night" hope to attract new visitors who are too busy during the day to visit exhibitions. Moreover, the organization of the event allows one to see all the treasures of Cologne in just a few hours.
As in Berlin, Munich, and other German cities that annually organize such events, all major museums in Cologne are concentrated in the city center. The two main repositories are the Wallraf-Richartz Museum with its magnificent collection of medieval and Renaissance art and the Roman-German Museum, which displays artifacts from the Roman Empire period when a Roman settlement stood on the site of Cologne.
The Applied Art Museum and the Ludwig Museum showcase contemporary art, while at the Mikwe one can see a deep ritual bath that belonged to the medieval Jewish community. All of them are also conveniently located in the center of Cologne.
Using the buses, one can visit such interesting repositories as the Museum of Design of the 60s-70s, museums exhibiting non-European art, and even the Chocolate Museum. As usual, during the museum night, one can listen to jazz, baroque, and ethnic music, as well as DJ performances.
As noted by Travel.ru, first held in 2000, the Cologne Museum Night has become the city's main autumn event and now annually attracts crowds of tourists.