Chasing Summer –

I have flown through Frankfurt dozens of times over the years and even stopped in Germany once, but it wasn’t Frankfurt. I thought it would be interesting to see the city of the airport I’ve visited many times. Besides, then I could fly out from here.

One of the big things to do in Frankfurt central is shop. There are several shopping streets with all sorts of shopping centers, from high end to budget friendly.

The Frankfurt Cathedral is a main tourist spot. It isn’t really a cathedral, it’s just called that. Kind of like people with big houses calling them palaces.

It is the third building at this location and was built after a fire in 1867. The original building was built in the 7th century.

Unlike in several other cities where Market square is the hub of the community, here it is small and attractive, but not bustling with energey.

Romerberg is the main square. City Hall and Old Nicholas Church help anchor the square.

Most of the square was destroyed in the air-raids in 1944 and today the buildings are externally true to the original reconstructions built in the 1950’s and 1980’s.

It is a nice place to sit at a restuaraunt or by the center fountain and admire the architecture.

The Old Nicholas Church, Haus Werheim and the Customs Tower near them somehow managed to survive the air-raids and are largely untouched by reconstruction.

Across the street from the Custom Tower is the river Main. To connect the Old Town with the Sachsenhausen district a bridge was built called the Iron Bridge or Eiserner Steg (1868). The original bridge was blown up in the last days of the war and was the first bridge to be rebuilt in 1946.

The area of Sachsenhausen was relatively untouched during the war, so has the most intact historical buildings. There are many museums here and is a hot night spot with many bars serving the traditional cider.

Since I went over around lunch time and nothing was open, I headed back over the river and into Old Town again.

My second day here was rainy and blah. This was okay because I was lazy and didn’t really want to put in too much effort to be a tourist. I hit a couple of stores in the morning and bought a pair of pants. Most of the day was spent going through photos and writing down what I had done over the past few days.

In the afternoon, I headed out to another brewery to eat a late lunch and walkled through the Jewish quarter to get there. I passed by the Jewish museum, old graveyard, and memorial wall.

For lunch, I tried the local craft beers, which were all types of IPAs (this seems to be the most popular kind of new beer here) and handkas with music. It is a typical pub dish in Frankfurt that has a cow cheese marinated in vinager-oil-onion and served with bread, butter, and caraway seeds. I was expecting it to be really pungent, and it wasn’t, but it definitely is an aquired taste.

It was fun to see what was there, and I’m glad I stopped, but definitely two days is plenty to see everything that you want and do a spot of shopping.