Frankfurt

I’ve flown through the airport of Frankfurt over 20 times by now, but never once left the airport. So it was overdue that I changed that and visited the city itself. Ironically, train tickets are much cheaper than flights between Zurich and Frankfurt, because the Lufthansa Group has a monopoly in the air. So, in order to visit the city itself, I booked a trip with Deutsche Bahn.

Wednesday

Got to Frankfurt punctually past 10 PM with three different trains along the way from Zurich. I had to change trains in Basel and Mannheim on the way north. Checked in at my hotel and quickly unpacked, then went to a nightclub for a few hours of fun. I  got back to my hotel at 2 AM, as I couldn’t stay out all too late.

Thursday

Got up late after a late night. After breakfast I walked over to the nearby Messe, the home of Frankfurt’s many trade fairs.

There wasn’t much going on, but you could still check out the large conference buildings and neighboring skyscrapers.

Went on the U-Bahn subway towards the IG Farbenhaus, built in 1931 as the headquarters for what was then Germany’s largest chemistry company, IG Farben.

After the Nazis took power, they were producing several products for the German state and military. In 1941 their chemistry plants turned into factories for the poison gas Zyklon-B.

The distribution and production of Zyklon-B was coordinated in detail from the IG Farbenhaus headquarters. This poison gas was used to murder over one million people at the Auschwitz concentration camps. Today, the building is the main campus of the Goethe-University of Frankfurt.

There’s a small exhibit about the history of the place. In the corner of the campus is a small cottage, with a memorial for some of the forced laborers that worked for the factory during the war. An added bonus to visiting the building is riding the paternoster lifts.

On my way downtown I stopped for photos at the Eschenheimer Turm. Then I continued past the Hauptwache square towards the restaurant Salzkammer for lunch.

The Hauptwache.

The Salzkammer served a delicious pan dish, the “Bauerpfand’l” with minced meat, potatoes, eggs and bacon fried together with a few spices and other ingredients, with a salad on the side.

I had picked the Salzkammer for lunch because I was planning to visit the Goethe House nearby, the birthplace of one of Germany’s more famous writers, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. His parents lived here when he was born in 1749. Goethe himself didn’t spend his entire life in the building.

The house has been restored to look much like it did prior to a 1944 Allied bombing raid, when most of the building was destroyed. It now serves as a museum dedicated to Goethe, his works and his family.

After the Goethe House, I walked around central Frankfurt a bit, past the Alte Oper opera house and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange building.

The Alte Oper.

The stock exchange does offer tours of the building for visitors, but it had been fully booked long before I started planning my trip. I then took the subway and a tram down to the Sachsenhausen district to walk around its village-like neighborhood. The main reason for going to Sachsenhausen however, was to cross the Main River and walk along the southern riverfront. It paid off, as I was rewarded with fantastic views of Frankfurt’s financial district skyline – the “Mainhattan”.

My next point of interest was the Römerberg square, the home of the Römer, the city’s old town hall. I took a few photos of the buildings surrounding the square to pass time.

I was actually waiting for my friend Carsten, who showed up a few minutes after I did. We met traveling on the same group tour in Turkmenistan last fall, and he lives in Frankfurt. We planned to meet up and spend the evening together.

The nearby 13th century Kaiser Dom had its tower open, so we went up the 66 meters/200ft tall staircase for views over central Frankfurt.

The cathedral itself is also open to visitors. It’s quite an interesting interior designed using mostly red sandstone. The name translates to Emperor Cathedral, and for good reason. The Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were elected in a chapel here starting in 1356. From 1562 to 1792 they were even coronated in the same chapel.

We also went over to the Kleine Markthalle to stroll past its many foodstands. Then we continued towards the Main Tower, a skyscraper in the Financial District with an observation deck on the 54th floor, reached in less than a minute by lift.

The observation deck is outdoors, which allows great views of downtown Frankfurt, and on clear days, the surrounding area and suburbs. Few places in town has a better view, but it gets quite windy as you are 200m/600ft above ground. They even close the observation platform during thunderstorms.

It was about 5:30 PM, and at this time Carsten wanted to show me the Thursday market at the Konstabler Wache Square. It is a great spot for locals to relax after work. There’s plenty of food and drinks stands, and the square really gets crowded after 6 PM.

What amazed me about the place was how easy it was to strike up a conversation with strangers. In Western Europe, that’s hard to find nowadays.

For dinner, the choice became the Pizzeria 7 Bello. The restaurant is incredibly popular with locals, who queue up and wait sometimes half an hour for seats at the few crowded tables. Carsten recommended the “Fleischteller” (meat plate), and it is literally just meat. Well, meat and some oil and a bit of basil. Let’s just say the place is not exactly a vegan restaurant.

Carsten showed me a few bars near the central train station, even though I don’t drink. Eventually he had to go home, as he still had to work the following day. I went back to my hotel. I wasn’t so keen on going clubbing two nights in a row, so I simply went to bed.

Friday

After checking out of my hotel, I got on a regional train to the city of Mainz, about 30km/20mi southwest of Frankfurt. The city was the birthplace of Johannes Gutenberg, who invented the printing press. There’s a museum dedicated to this revolution in communication and media, with a large collection of books from both before and after Gutenberg’s invention in the 1440s.

Some of the world’s very first printed books from the 15th century, including Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible, are kept behind armored glass in a vault protected with fire-proof doors. There’s also a working replica of Gutenberg’s printing press in the basement. Fortunately, you are allowed to photograph inside the museum basement.

I stopped by the 12th century Mainzer Dom to have a look inside the red sandstone cathedral.

After visiting the Dom, I walked along the riverfront to the nearest train station. I took the regional S-train back to Frankfurt. For lunch, I decided on the 12 Apostles restaurant, as I definitely wanted some German food before leaving Frankfurt later that day.

Be careful what you ask for. That was too much sauerkraut for me.

On my to-do list was the MyZeil shopping center, because it supposedly had an observation deck – this was closed. I had to make do with the longest escalator in Europe, but it wasn’t as spectacular as it sounds.

Honestly it’s just an escalator, and for me it wasn’t even the longest escalator I’ve tried. The ones in the Pyongyang Metro are much, much longer.

The next stop for me was the old City Hall, particularly its Kaisersaal, which has portraits of 52 German emperors, who ruled between the 8th century and 1806. I didn’t even enter, as a sign at the entrance pointed to the fact that these portraits were no longer visible. The paintings were still in the building physically, but had all been covered up by portraits of various modern-day females by a feminist movement. Not as an unlawful protest, but supported by the City Hall as a special exhibit. In my opinion, there’s plenty of very appropriate places for any sort of demonstration/special exhibit, be it feminism or whatever, but covering up historically significant property is out of taste.

I took a quick peek inside the Alte Nikolaikirche on the southern side of the Römerberg (City Hall Square). Then I continued towards the next-door Historisches Museum for my last sight in Frankfurt. For a historical museum, I found it very unorthodox. Exhibits weren’t chronological, rather often divided by who was the owner of whatever collection of items were on display. It was best described as a dozen mini-museums housed inside the same building. Additionally, very few things were labeled, so it wasn’t always obvious what you were looking at.

The 14th century key to the city gates.

The museum was however good enough to kill time for an hour. Before long it was time to walk back to my hotel and pick up my suitcase. My return train to Zurich was leaving soon.