Frankfurt

Well it’s been a while since I made my last post, but I’m back with more German travel exploits. But first, some other news

I successfully made buttermilk biscuits here! It was a little hard finding Crisco, but the grocery store near me had it hidden in the back along with all the imports. I also found out that Germans just drink buttermilk, so I thought their version was different and got dickmilch(thick milk). Turns out that's just a solid curd and buttermilk is in fact normal buttermilk.

And here are a few of my latest acquisitions

A couple of magazines from the 1936 Olympics

An old guide to tube radios from 1933

Pamphlet from the US military government explaining imperial units from 1948

Two small ads for Deutsche Bank from about 1940-1942

I also got an older tube radio, a Philips Philetta 54. I wasn't sure about picking up electronics here, since I'd need a transformer to use them in America, but most German tube radios are designed to accept either 220V or 120V.

Onto travel, I decided last weekend to visit Frankfurt. So I got up early on Saturday morning so I could catch the 8am train.

Böblingen at 7am

And after about an hour and a half we were pulling into Frankfurt HBF

Frankfurt HBF

They had a tent set up on that platform

My first stop after leaving the station was the room I had rented for the night so I could pick up the keys for later. I had looked into getting a hotel or hostel, but Frankfurt’s were a bit more expensive than the one I stayed at in Nuremberg. So I went on Airbnb and for the same price as sleeping in a room with nine other people, I got a private room to myself.

Tram to the apartment kinda felt like a time warp 

After taking care of that, I headed down to the old part of Frankfurt to see the cathedral with the Kaiserdom.

Kaiserdom

I then walked up the very long and steep staircase to get top of the Kaiserdom, where there’s a small observation deck. In a city that’s dominated by modern skyscrapers, the Kaiserdom still holds its own when it comes to height.

Door to the staircase

Staircase going to the top

Frankfurt Skyline

View of the Main river

After coming down, which was actually pretty hard since there’s only one very narrow staircase, I went into the cathedral itself.

Entrance to the cathedral

Inside the cathedral

I then walked over to Römerberg, where the old city government was based. I also got some frankfurter sausages and apfelwein for lunch at cafe here.

Frankfurters in Frankfurt

After finishing up lunch I walked across the Eiserner bridge, which has a lock thing going like that bridge in Paris.

Frankfurt has a “Museum Embankment” on the other side of the river, which is a big line of several museums covering just about every topic you could think of. I decided to visit two of these museums, the Deutsche Film Institute and the Museum of Communication

The Deutsche Film Institute was most about the progression of film technology, rather than German film in general, but I still enjoyed it. They had a lot of early optical illusions and machines that lead to the creation of film as we know it.

Deutsche Film Institute

Original Lumiere Camera/Projector

The Museum of Communication was excellent, featuring German radios, TV’s, phones, telegraphs, and mail memorabilia. They also had a special exhibit on German advertising which was pretty good. I thought it was interesting how after the war every German company’s advertising was basically “We’re Back!”

Interesting sculpture in the lobby

Volksempfangers from the 1930's

Old style automatic switchboard, you could hear from across the hall

This one looks familiar

Enigma Machines

After I was done with the communication museum, most of the museums were closing so I decided to head back to the room for a bit. There I looked up a movie theater playing the Hateful Eight in English, so I decided to do that for the night. For what I thought about the movie, I thought it was great! 

Theater I went to to see The Hateful Eight

The next morning I got up early so I could head to the outskirts of Frankfurt to see the Ernst May House. Frankfurt has all of these big suburban developments that are great examples of early modern architecture and this development was one of the first in the 20's

Ernst May House

It was a nice place to walk through, which is good since the house with the actual museum in it is pretty far away from the U-Bahn station.

I then headed into downtown Frankfurt to see some of the more central sights.

Deutsche Bahn Headquarters

Frankfurt HBF from the outside

Giant euro statue in the financial section

I then went back to Römerberg and went into the Paulskirche, an old church that was also once host to a German parliament before Germany was a unified country. It was burnt out during the war, so the sanctuary was rebuilt in a much more modern fashion.

Foyer on the ground floor, the sanctuary's above it

Inside the sanctuary

Sanctuary ceiling

Plaque for JFK, who spoke here during his tour of Germany

Next stop was the Frankfurt Historisches museum, which as it turned out was less about the history of Frankfurt, and more about the various collections that have been donated to it over the centuries. According to the museum there's a tradition of collecting in Frankfurt, sounds right up my alley, and collections of all kinds have been donated to the museum over time. It's pretty interesting if you like seeing a variety of different objects and art all at once. 

I crossed the river again to the museum embankment and headed to the Architectural Museum

They had an interesting exhibit on a German modernist architect named Ferdinand Kramer. I hadn't heard of him before, but after fleeing Germany in the 30's he helped to kickstart modular housing in America. After the war he went back to Frankfurt and redesigned the Frankfurt University's campus, which had been leveled during air raids. 

Inside the exhibit

After this museum it was just about time for my train back to Stuttgart, but I had enough time to stop by the old opera house first.

I also noticed this giant neon ad as I was walking down the platform for my train

Newspaper Ad in Frankfurt HBf