My second excursion to Frankfurt
Trip Start
Unknown
1
23
32
Trip End
Ongoing
What I did
Occupy Frankfurt
Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany
Saturday, October 22, 2011
I passed by some pretty large squares that were actually really barren looking. Maybe when its warmer they have more going on but all I saw were a few food and wine vendors and some big statues. Eventually I arrived at the main shopping area where all of the large malls are. In the square there was a large protest going on against the mistreatment of Copts in Egypt. This group was shouting into megaphones and blasting random music. There was also a group of Occupy Frankfurt protesters who were being somewhat less noisy and also an advertisement for some weird car that was also blasting random music. It was not a quiet place. I walked around for a little bit and then headed towards the river. On the way I passed the St. Paul's Church and the Rathaus. The St. Paul's Church is a massive Protestant church that was used by the first Constitutional Congress of Germany during the revolutions of 1848. Unfortunately for the revolutionaries, Prussia and Austria decided they didn't like the constitution and dissolved the National Assembly. There was another group of Occupy Frankfurt protesters outside of this building as well, though they were being pretty quiet and tame. The church itself was unfortunately closed for cleaning the day I went so I didn't get to see the inside. The Rathaus was right across the street and in my opinion is almost as impressive as the Rathaus of Munich, at least in terms of the exterior. It is definitely larger. The one thing it is missing is a fancy Glockenspiel. Apparently there's some cool stuff inside but I guess its fall cleaning or something in Hessen since it was close for the week for cleaning. I walked around the Rathaus to a pretty touristy square and then to the Cathedral of St. Bartholomew. In front of the Cathedral was some old ruins of buildings from the Middle Ages, which were pretty cool although there was hardly any information about them. I walked around the Cathedral and then went inside. Like the Mainz Dom, this cathedral is extremely impressive on the outside, but less so on the inside. I didn't know this at the time but apparently the crowning of the Holy Roman Emperors took place in this church during the later years of the empire.
After the Dom I headed to the river to check out a church on the other side that looked pretty cool. I crossed using a pedestrian bridge this is covered stacks of locks, I took a picture of one of the stacks. I have no idea why this is but it almost looks like they hold the bridge together. The church I went to ended up being another church that is a lot more impressive from the outside, the interior was pretty blase. I headed back to Frankfurt city center to walk through some stores and ended up going in the Galleria Kaufhaus. These are kind of like the big department stores of Germany, if a city has one, the city is obviously somewhat important. The on in Frankfurt has probably the largest alcohol section I've ever seen, primarily due to its wine collection. The most expensive wine I saw was a 999 euro 3 liter bottle of something that would probably taste the same as a 3 euro bottle of wine to me. The store also had something that I came to Germany for, cans of Milwaukee's Finest. Thank goodness, I had really been missing terrible American beer. Best of all, it was located in the "exotic" beers section, next to the 16% alcohol beers and some other foreign beers. The crown jewel of the store that I found was the cognac display, which had a 1500 euro very fancy looking bottle of Cognac and in case that is too cheap for your tastes, 1900 Euro bottle of Cognac. Other than this part of the store it was a pretty average Kaufhaus so I left to go check out more of the town. I eventually stumbled upon a large medieval looking tower in the middle of the street. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to see other than the exterior, the rest had been converted into restaurant seating.
After the tower I decided I would finally eat some lunch so I got a Paprikawurst from a street vendor. It was a brat with paprika in it, and had ketchup, mayo, mustard, pickles and fried onions piled on it. Normally I'm not a huge fan of that many toppings but it ended up being very good and cheap for Frankfurt. I ate that on the way back to the train station and took an IC train back to Marburg so I wouldn't have to worry about it going on random loops away from Marburg. I ended up getting home in the early afternoon so I even had time to relax a little bit before I went out that night with some friends. I also got to sleep in Sunday morning since I decided I needed a break from traveling.
