This bastion with its chestnut trees all around is the rest of the city fortification forming the south-eastern end of the old town. Its name reminds of the customs house, which was located here since the Middle Ages.  
 
As the name already says, the electoral customs house was located here at the south-eastern edge of the medieval city border in former times for the levy of Rhine duty. In the course of the Thirty Years’ War (1618 – 1648), the “Alter Zoll” became part of the city fortification as the so-called “Drei-Königs-Bastion” under elector Ferdinand in 1642. Two cannons from the times of the Napoleonic
Wars remind of the former military utilization. Today, the “Alter Zoll” offers one of the most wonderful views of Bonn to the Rhine and the Siebengebirge. This free view over the Rhine may even have prompted the town fathers to erect a monument here to Ernst-Moritz Arndt, the famous citizen of Bonn, five years after his death in 1865.

Alter Zoll
Brassertufer / Konviktstraße
53113 Bonn

Source: Tourismus&Congress GmbH Region Bonn/Rhein-Sieg/Ahrweiler