Frankfurt - Day 1 (4/30)

After many hours of sleep, I awoke to my first day in Frankfurt. Since I hadn’t gotten beyond the Frankfurt train station while in Germany last year, I decided to spend a couple of days here before heading to Switzerland. After breakfast, I headed out toward the city center – 3 train stops away – and wandered around until I found the Römer – or city hall. There was a wedding out front – and the “platz,” or plaza, in front of it is, architecturally, very German. On the way there, I entered St. Katharin Church, and noted that a free organ concert was scheduled there later in the day. I also found Paulskirche, which was built as a church, and was later used for the German parliament in the 1800s. During World War II, it was destroyed in Allied bombing in 1944; the church was rebuilt immediately after the war, as a symbol of the survival of democracy and re-dedicated in 1948. Now it is used for special occasions, like the annual presentation of a German award for literature. There is an amazing mural that spans the inside wall of the circular structure.

From the Römer, I walked a short distance to the edge of the Main River that runs through Frankfurt. Right in front of me was the ticket office for the sightseeing boat cruises I’d read about. I bought a ticket for a 100-minute cruise that took me both directions along the river. It was windy and a bit cold – I put on my sweatshirt, but I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Frankfurt from the boat! I sat up top, where it was unprotected, and got great views of the skyline, the bridges, and the city along the river.  The narrative came from a loudspeaker in both German and English; I understood almost nothing of the German (which I probably wouldn’t have been able to follow after my classes last fall –fast language from a loudspeaker is not easy in any language - but I realized today how much of my German I’ve forgotten!).

At the end of the tour, I walked to the Kaiserdom – the cathedral. Like many other buildings, it was bombed in 1944 and rebuilt after the war.  The red sandstone building has a lot of construction going on around it. There’s a small museum of liturgical items that I could have done without (no English translations, so I didn’t know what I was looking at), with the exception of a Gutenberg printing press. From there, I walked north to the Kleinmarkthalle – a market of wonderful foods. There are booths selling all kinds of things – produce, meat, seafood, flowers, chocolates, baked goods – and small restaurants where you could grab a bite to eat.  There is also a wine bar, which seems strangely out of place given the German fondness for beer – but it was well populated at lunchtime. I had a delightful sandwich on focaccia bread and soaked in the atmosphere.

After lunch, I walked to the Jewish Museum, only to discover that it was closed on Mondays.  Oh, well . . . But the museum is next to the Jewish cemetery, which is surrounded by a wall with small cubes sticking out.  Each one bears the name of a Jewish person from Frankfurt who died in the Holocaust, often with the name of the concentration camp where the person died. It is the custom to put a stone on top of a cube to signify that the person named on the cube will not be forgotten.  Many of the cubes had stones. Although the cemetery itself was locked, it was clear that most of the graves had been desecrated; only a small portion remained.

From there I went to Goethe’s home, which has been preserved as a museum. Actually, it, too, was destroyed in the Allied bombing, but the house was rebuilt after the war and furnished with many of the Goethe family’s belongings, which had been put in storage elsewhere when the family sold the house. Two items that caught my eye were: a linen press to smooth out the linens in the huge Goethe family collection, and a puppet theater, given to Johann W. Goethe as a child.  Apparently, he and his sister put on many puppet shows in that theater.

I had just enough time to get back to St. Katharin Church for the organ concert at 4:30 PM. It was a half hour of wonderful organ music played by a professor of music who had been associated with the church for many years. It was nice to see so many people in attendance to appreciate the organ music.

After resting a bit at the hostel, I went down the street to have my favorite German food – “donner” (or what we know as “gyros”) for dinner. As I learned last fall, Turks immigrated to Germany in the 1920s, and provided Germany with its fast food – “donner.”  I ate donner two or three nights a week while in Germany in September and October.  It seemed like a good choice for tonight.