Tom`s travels: Frankfurt am Main (10-11/12/2023)

On another December weekend, Ania and I headed to Frankfurt. After reaching the destination by train from Berlin, our first stop was the tourist info point where we bought a Museumsufer card, a card which grants access to all 39 museums in the city for 48 hours. We got a family pass for just 32 euros and headed on to visit several museums throughout the day. We walked on the Holbeinsteg bridge over the Main River and reached the other side, also known as the Museum Embankment, where several museums are located. Our first stop was the Liebieghaus, a late 19th-century villa that contains a sculpture museum. However, as we got there we were told that as there was a special exhibition the car we had was not valid on that day, despite being told at the info point the car was valid for all museums and for permanent and special exhibitions. We then exited and walked to the nearby Städel Museum, the most important in the city and one of the best-known in the country. Inside was a large collection, of European paintings from the 14th to the 21st century. There were several important paintings by famous artists such as van Eyck, Botticelli, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Monet, and Renoir. After the visit to the museum, we crossed over the Main once again and reached the Jewish Museum. Though small the museum, located inside two neoclassical villas, presented Frankfurt's long Jewish history with objects and testimonies on the culture, religion, and life of its inhabitants. Next up was the archaeological museum, hosted inside the former Carmelite monastery. There were exhibitions on the ancient Roman past of the city and surroundings, with some interesting objects including mile markers, mithraeums, and columns. Furthermore, there were some sections on ancient Greek and Cypriot vases, WW2 objects and memorabilia, and then the former cloister of the monastery. Here was a collection of 40 fresco scenes on parts of the walls made between 1515 and 1520, featuring classic Christian themes such as the creation of the world, the birth and death of Jesus Christ, and the Last Judgement. Moving on we left the museum behind and passed by the church of St. Leonhard, a small gothic church from the early 15th century which is the only one of nine churches in the old town that survived WW2 nearly undamaged. Not far from it, we crossed the river once again on the Eiserner Steg, and from where we had a great view of both the old town and the newer part of the city with all the skyscrapers giving Frankfurt the colloquial name of Mainhattan. Following the riverside, we came upon another museum, the Icon Museum, hosted inside part of the monastery of the baroque Deutschordenskirche. Rather tiny it still had a nice and interesting collection of orthodox icons, mostly Russian, but also Romanian, Ethiopian, and Venetian-Cretan. From the museum we crossed once again into the old town, this time over the Alte Brücke, passing by the Leinwandhaus, a 15th-century gothic house, and reaching then the Cathedral. Built between the 14th and 15th centuries in a Gothic red stone style it was rebuilt after a fire in 1867 and again after WW2. Its size is imposing and features a tower that reaches a height of 95m which can be accessed with an elevator. Once inside, we walked around admiring some nice gothic altars and medieval stained glass windows. We exited the building just as it was getting dark and walked through the nicely reconstructed new town, with historic buildings and houses all around. We stopped in one of them which hosted the Struwwelpeter Museum. This curious museum is dedicated to Heinrich Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter, an 1845 children's book composed of ten illustrated and rhymed stories, all of which with a cautionary tale that gives a clear moral lesson demonstrating the disastrous consequences of misbehavior in an exaggerated way. A street away from the museum, below some buildings we then walked through the small archaeological site of some ancient Roman ruins, most probably pertaining to the bathhouse, as well as the ruins of the Carolingian aula region from the 8th century. A short walk then led us to the Schirn Kunsthalle, a modern and contemporary art museum which quite disappointed me as it was rather mostly contemporary with few pieces, quite abstract, and with lots of unused space. Once we were done visiting the museum we headed on to the nearby Römerberg, the old town's main square, with all the nice reconstructed historical houses all around. Here was also the main Christmas market, with all the food and objects stalls, and quite crowded already. After walking around and enjoying the Christmassy atmosphere we were then getting hungry and decided to look for a place to eat. We ended up at the eatDOORI Indian Restaurant where I had a tasty chicken tikka masala while Ania had a chickpea curry. Eventually, tired after a full day, we headed to our hotel, the Scandic.

The following morning, as Ania had to go for a check-up at her job's main site just outside Frankfurt I decided to head out of the old town and visit the Senckenberg Natural History Museum. Inside were some fascinating dinosaur bones, some originals, and some replicas from other natural history museums around the world. Originals included a diplodocus, triceratops, and edmontosaurus, while casts included a t-rex, iguanodon, and oviraptor among others. Apart from dinosaurs, there was also a nice fossil collection, minerals, stuffed animals from all over the world, and a section on life in the sea. After visiting the museum I headed back to town, and reached Römer Square once again. As the sun had come out I walked around the area seeing the Christmas market in a different light. On the same square, I then entered the Old St. Nicholas Church, a gothic building mostly spared during WW2. Heading then to the Cathedral I met back up with Ania and together we strolled through town enjoying the sun and architecture. From there we then reached St. Paul's Church, a former 18th century neoclassical church used as a national assembly hall in 1848 when the Frankfurt Parliament convened there, as the first publicly and freely-elected German legislative body. Not far from there we then walked past the Liebfrauen, a small gothic church from between the 14th and 16th centuries, and the church of St Catherine, a mix of gothic and baroque, both of which were closed, the latter also under scaffolding. In front of St Catherine's, surrounded by a large square we then saw the Hauptwache, a 1730 building used as the headquarters of the city's Stadtwehr militia when Frankfurt was an independent city-state as well as containing a prison. Moving onwards our next stop was the Goethe House, Goethe's birthplace from 1749, and the adjoining Deutsches Romantik-Museum. We entered the museum, where we got the ticket for both the museum and the writer's house, and began with the former. Dedicated to German Romanticism it featured paintings, manuscripts, and objects pertaining to the period and movement in question. Visiting then Goethe's house we admired the nicely reconstructed building and interior, all faithfully rebuilt after the WW2 bombing. Finally, after the visit, it was time to head to the train station from where we then took our ride back to Berlin.