Frankfurt travel guide
With its spectacular cluster of skyscrapers, Germany’s financial capital on the River Main has earned the nickname ‘Bankfurt’ or even ‘Mainhattan’. Astride strategic communication routes, Frankfurt has always gained a good living from commerce, as well as being an important meeting place.
For centuries it was here that Germany’s rulers came together to elect kings and emperors, many of whom were crowned in the cathedral. In 1848, it was in the city’s Paulskirche that delegates from all over Central Europe assembled in an ill-fated attempt to establish a united, democratic Germany. The millions who come here nowadays arrive via converging Autobahnen, by high-speed train or through the huge airport, continental Europe’s busiest.
As well as being the seat of the Bundesbank, the European Central Bank and the German Stock Exchange, today’s Frankfurt is a centre of media and publishing. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is generally regarded as the country’s leading daily paper and the Frankfurt Book Fair is the world’s most important event of its kind. Nevertheless, the city retains a rustic sense of its roots, notably with its devotion to the local drink, äppelwoi, cider made from the orchards all around, best consumed in the taverns of the charming old quarter of Sachsenhausen, just across the river from the sophisticated city centre.
Places to visit in Frankfurt
The historic Römerberg
Explorations of Frankfurt usually start at its historical core, the cobbled square known as the Römerberg, meticulously reconstructed after being reduced to rubble like most of the city in World War II. Opposite a splendid group of tall timber-framed town mansions is the Römer, the old city hall, and here too is the 13th-century red sandstone Nikolaikirche.
Historisches Museum
www.historisches-museum.frankfurt.de
The Historisches Museum (Historical Museum) is worth visiting if only to see poignantly contrasting models of the city before and after its near total destruction.
Kaiserdom and its impressive tower
The 13th-century Kaiserdom's (Imperial Cathedral) most striking feature is its tower. Until the advent of skyscrapers it was the city’s tallest structure.
From art to Jewish history, explore the Museum Mile
The majority of Frankfurt’s galleries and museums are grouped in the ‘museum mile’ stretching along the Main embankment opposite the city centre. There are institutions devoted to film, architecture, postal services, ethnography, antique sculpture and the applied arts, but most visitors head first to the Städel Museum (www.staedelmuseum.de). This is one of the country’s great picture galleries, with more than 600 masterpieces of European painting from the 14th century onwards. The portrait Goethe in the Campagna by Tischbein is one of the gallery’s evergreens; Goethe was born in Frankfurt, and many make the pilgrimage to his birthplace, the sensitively restored Goethe-Haus (www.goethehaus-frankfurt.de).
Another place of memory is the Jüdisches Museum (Jewish Museum; www.juedischesmuseum.de), whose displays evoke the long history of Frankfurt’s Jewish community, which before the Holocaust was one of Germany’s largest.
Discover more...
• Visiting southwest Germany? Try the picturesque town of Heidelberg
Read more from the travel guide to Germany
