Sightseeing in Frankfurt

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We slept well despite it being a very warm night and the hotel having no air conditioning!! Even though we power napped during the afternoon, we managed to sleep through until about five this morning. We didn't think this was too bad in terms of adjusting to local time.

With most museums not opening until 10.00am we were not in a rush to get going. I worked on my travel diary until about 8.00am and then we showered and went down to breakfast. Considering that the hotel is only costing €73.00/night the breakfast buffet was quite a spread catering to all tastes with Asian, European and English options available.

After leaving our bags in the hotel's luggage room we caught the tram to Willy-Brandt-Platz again. This time we walked though the gardens that follow the line of the city's Mediaeval wall until we reached Alte Oper, the Old Opera House. The Old Opera House was built in 1880 and bombed during WWII. It was reconstructed and reopened in 1981. From here we continued through the gardens to a lake that is a remnant of the moat that used to be on the outside of the Mediaeval wall.

As we were taking photos of the lake, a man pulled up on his bicycle and asked if we were looking for photo opportunities. He then proceeded to tell us that a little further along we could see a man washing down a statue of a bare-breasted woman. He thought that this would make for a highly amusing photograph!? When we reached the hapless fellow whose job it is to wash down the statue of a bare-breasted woman in public we tried to tell him about the amusing (?) suggestion that had been made (at his expense), but he wasn't terribly fluent in English ... or perhaps he was embarrassed?? Anyhow, there's no photo of the statue before, during or after her bath!!

The final point of interest that we visited along the old wall was Eschenheimer Turm one of Frankfurt's 60 Mediaeval towers which used to encircle the city. Built between 1400 and 1428 it is the only tower that remains.

From the tower we headed towards the Hauptwacher, a baroque building dating back to 1729. The building has been a prison and a police station and is now a cafe. The Hauptwacher is very close to Frankfurt's modern shopping centre. Being so close, we decided to pop in for a look at this very contemporary glass construction that is in stark contrast to the more historic features of Frankfurt. The roof is made up of triangular glass panels that form a funnel into the interior of the shopping centre.

With Bernie wanting to buy a broadband-only SIM for our mi-fi we went into a few telecommunication shops in the shopping centre to see what we could find. Language barrier notwithstanding, we think what we established is that Germans are not inclined to share their Internet with foreigners!! To do almost anything in Germany you have to be a registered citizen and this requirement rather seems to prevent a tourist purchasing any Internet enabling technology?! Having done some research on this before leaving, Bernie thinks that we will be able to buy what he wants in Belgium or France - he just didn't think that it would prove impossible in Germany.

Oh dear, another day in Europe in late spring, another al fresco lunch. Definitely nowhere near as warm as yesterday, but still pleasant enough to eat out of doors. Anyone feeling jealous as they read this account might feel better when I say that we could see black clouds rolling towards the city as we ate. As it got blacker we decided that it might be a good idea to hurry off to our next point of interest - Goethe's House - before the weather changed!!

Phew! We made it to Goethe's House just as the heavens opened!! Originally it was forecast to be really horrible all day today so we have done well to have a lovely morning in which to do some more outdoor sightseeing before retreating to some museums for the afternoon ahead of catching the train to Brussels this evening.

Goethehaus was the home of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's parents and he was born in the house in 1749. He spent his youth in the house before he moved to Leipzig to study law. The house was almost completely destroyed during WWII, but was rebuilt soon after the end of the war. In fact, it was one of the first significant buildings that was rebuilt after the war. The museum was very reasonably priced at just €5.00/person, but we paid just €2.50/each with our Frankfurt cards entitling us to a 50% discount. With what we saved on our entry charge we hired audio guides which were excellent.

With the worst of the rain over we headed back outside and managed to walk to Paulskirche (St Paul's Church) without getting wet. St Paul's is a neoclassical building dating back to 1833 when it was a protestant church.
However, the church is actually more associated with the German democratic movement having served as a parliamentary venue from the time of the first freely elected parliament in 1848-1849. St Paul's is another building that was extensively damaged during WWII that has been rebuilt.

With the weather still gloomy we needed to find one more museum to fill in another hour or so. We rather bravely set off across the river to the Museum fur Kommunikation ... and once again made it without getting wet! The Communication Museum houses a large collection of relics from the postal and telephone services. Whilst the collection is very impressive, the labelling is not with all of the descriptions and explanations in German only!!

Fortunately, there was a folder at the front of each section that provided us with English translations. We had to take the folder with us into each section and then put it back at the front as we proceeded to the next section. This seemed a rather cumbersome way to cater for English speaking tourists?! I guess we should be grateful that some concession was made for speakers of English - visitors who can't read German or English would be really stuck. Unfortunately, with a train to be caught, we ran out of time to find the stamp collection that is housed by the museum - allegedly one of the world's largest philatelic compilations accessible to the public!!

It was spitting a little as we made our way back to the hotel, but considering the forecast we have been very lucky to be out all day without getting wet. Back at the hotel we collected our bags from the luggage room in the basement and headed across the street to the station. Bernie was anxious that we arrive at the station well ahead of our scheduled 6.29pm departure. Still, I think 5.10pm may have been a bit too soon to be hanging out at the station?? Not to worry, we found a cafe and ordered some drinks so that we could sit there for about 45 minutes rather than on a deserted platform.

We made our way to Platform 18 just before six and the train rolled in soon after. With typical German efficiency we departed right on time at 6.29pm bound for Brussels. To avoid sleeping for most (all?) of the three hour trip, Bernie is processing photos on the laptop and I am catching up on my travel diary on the iPad as we fly across Germany and Belgium at nearly 300km/hour! It is slightly disconcerting that our seats, in fact nearly all of the seats in our wagon, have us facing away from our direction travel. So we are rocketing along backwards at nearly 300km/hour.

We're not sure what happened to German efficiency along the way, but we arrived in Brussels nearly half an hour late!! At 10 o'clock at night we decided to take a taxi to our B and B. One short, but scary taxi ride later we were at our accommodation for the next two nights. The roads through central Brussels are very narrow and lined with parked cars - but this didn't stop our taxi driver from driving very quickly with a street map on the steering wheel.

We had warm baguettes with ham and melted cheese on the train which was supposed to keep us going until we arrived in Brussels and found something to have for dinner. We were too tired though and our 'snack' ended up being our dinner because we crashed just about as soon as we were in our (very compact) room!!

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Comments

[Valerie]

Sheep!
I love those sheep made out of old telephones and curly cords!