Mainhatten (Frankfurt am Main)

The Germans are kidding themselves if they think that Frankfurt is “Manhattan on the Main.” 13 skyscrapers does not a Manhattan make. But, It is nice to see some modern buildings in a county so steeped in history.

Frankfurt is an interesting city, and it was with slight trepidation that we approached it, having read earlier in an article that Frankfurt, “despite its own hardest efforts to be interesting - is completely and utterly the most boring city in Europe.” Well reader - I beg to differ. Hopping out of the car, we drove past the “Occupy Frankfurt” protests outside the headquarters of the European Central Bank - and the thumping techno music pulsating from the camp grounds gave me the impression that this was a city that took money very seriously indeed (even if the music was sporadically cut off by what I can assume was the generator for its power failing every 30 seconds).

After finally managing to park, we headed into the Hauptwache - the main city square.It being the morning after New Years Eve, the street was littered with all varieties of things required for celebrations. Smashed beer bottles, half-drunk (amazingly!!) bottles of vodka, and champagne bottle strewn over the ground. Empty firework boxes gave the city a lovely “hangover” atmosphere. It is often uncomfortable to have racial and cultural stereotypes confirmed, but reader, I am pleased to say that the stereotype of the efficient and clean German is true, and by midday, the streets were clean of the mess from the night before.

Frankfurt (so named as Charlemagne had a base here “Fort of the Franks) - was bombed by the Allies in 1944, and is it still clearly possible to tell which buildings were and were not bombed. Most dishearteningly of all, the Alte Oper was destroyed in an Allied firestorm, but was lovingly rebuilt by enterprising Frankfurters (people - not sausages).

Now - when in Frankfurt, one cannot miss out on an opportunity to head up one of the 13 skyscrapers (I would have said many, but that would have been a bit pretentious of me to suggest that 13 is many. Even Brisbane has more than that!!). The wind and cloud cover over the city gave the trip up to the tower a special feel, as the occasional cloud hitting us provided with more excitement than we had initially anticipated. But it was a thrilling sight to be able to view all of Frankfurt, and most impressively for me - Germany’s tallest inhabited building, the Commerzbank Tower.

With a sizable dose of modern banking and the gleaming glass and steel skyscrapers of the 21st Century, we took a walk over to the Romerberg - the historic centre of Frankfurt. A more lovely than expected cluster of buildings serve as Frankfurt’s town hall, and Annabelle was delighted that a REAL Christmas Tree was still standing in the city square.

But we were thirsty for more of the city, so we jumped aboard a bus to see the city, and despite the intensely uncomfortable headphones offered to us so that we could listen to the commentary in over 12 languages. We rather boringly chose English. But it was fascinating to listen to this tour. We learnt far more than we would have otherwise. A few “fun facts" from the tour;

• Frankfurt has the second largest Jewish community in Germany. The Rothschilds themselves are from Frankfurt (more banking)
• Frankfurters brew an alcoholic beverage known as Apple Wine (I forget the German name, but my already enormous grasp of German means I can hazard a guess and say it’s called something like Apelvien in German..). They brew this, because its able to avoid the alcohol tax from the Federal Government for some reason or other (that was not clearly explained by the box in front of my seat on the bus - perhaps it was explained in Russian???). The Frankfurters are an enterprising lot! Taverns that brew their own have a green wreath next to their name. Again, this was not explained why a green wreath - so that’s some research for you to do reader!!
• Frankfurt was where the Holy Roman Emperors were crowned from the 16th to the 18th Century.

This city was shaping up as far more interesting than that article had let on. Hopping off the bus, we were determined to find a tavern with the green wreath next to its name. Luckily for us, there were about 5 within the central square alone, so we headed to the one with the least walking distance. Well reader - what an experience! Thankfully the menu had English translations, meaning we have for now avoided the worry of ordering something which we have no idea what it was. Overwhelmed with choices that genuinely seemed interesting, from the Goose with Juniper Gravy, Red Cabbage and Dumplings, to the 5 different types of sausages (Annabelle had had a McDonalds burger with sausages on it already), I eventually settled on the Roast Beef with Red Cabbage and Dumplings, thinking I had for now avoided sauerkraut. I was only half right. I had avoided the pickled white cabbage. I had not avoided pickled red cabbage. But you know what, it wasn’t half bad, and the potato dumplings were actually quite nice. I was keen to try the cabbage. I was not keen after I had consumed about a third of it. It’s a rather intense flavour, one that I can tell you cannot be appreciated until you actually try it yourself.

By now, the jetlag was catching up with all of us, and me, having only had about 5 hours sleep in the last 36, was rapidly approaching the stage where you fall asleep standing up. We checked into our hotel room, and I made the foolish decision of going straight to bed. As such, I am writing this blog post at 2:00am, meaning that the 4 hours sleep I had from 3pm to 7pm, I should have used right now. I think I’m running on the time used in Iran, which means that I’m completely out of sync. But reader, I know you can enjoy this! Stay tuned for more. Today we head to the UNESCO World Heritage Rhine Valley and Cologne!!

Here is a map of our travelling that we did today:

View Frankfurt in a larger map