24 hours in Frankfurt

When we left Addis on April 23, we knew we were scheduled for a one day layover in Frankfurt Germany.  We were unfamiliar with where the airport was in relation to the city of Frankfurt, but were eager and willing to spend our Saturday wandering around and looking, which was exacly what we did.  We took the train or subway into the city center from the airport, which was really pretty easy.  We came up two stops early, my fault, and had to go back down and get on the train to get to our destination which was the center of Frankfurt.  There was supposed to be shopping, eating, museums, nice beautiful architecture, and other things to do.  We came up out of the subway and started exploring - it was pretty early in the morning.  it turned out to be a charming, relaxing day; full of nice views, and good food.  We had a great time in Frankfurt.  Here are some of the things we saw and did.

A castle-like structure.  This area was full of sidewalk cafes, and my mouth was watering to sample some of the foods I was seeing.

The bottom of the buildings are mostly shops, lots of restaurants and cool places to see and buy things. 

This shop was one of the best ones we saw.  There was everything inside.  It was like a huge
german delicatessen.  many women were inside buying bags of meats, breads, salads, desserts, wines, coffees, etc.  I could have stood there for an hour just taking it all in.  The smell of fresly baked European breads was wonderful. 

Alan and I stood looking through this window with our eyes popping.  We hadn't seen anything this good looking in a long time. 

Frankfurt is home to the financial center of Germany.  Here is their version of the bull and the bear with beautiful crabtrees blossoming in the background.  On this little plaza there were several pastry shops.

These little treats were so yummy looking, we didn't want to resist.  We went in and bought some apple pastry thing and one of those nutty tarts.  They were as good as they look. 

We slowly walked west on a beautiful street and came out at this plaza where the Opera theater is located.  There were many people out enjoying the sunshine and beautiful trees in blossom.  Children were running around, there were tourist groups, and many bicyclers out and about doing there saturday shopping.  

Alan was taking pictures of me and I was taking pictures of him.

Frankfurt was bombed terribly during WWII.  They had to start again practically from scratch.  Subsequently, there are not a lot of old, old buildings, except some churches, which were not totally destroyed.  Frankfurt boasts of the most skyscrapers in Europe.  Their skyline is beautiful and the city is so neat and clean, it almost doesn't seem real. 

We walked south toward the Main river which divides Frankfurt in half.  North and South.  On the north side we found this beautiful walk along the banks.  Too bad there weren't more leaves on the trees, but it was beautiful anyway. 

Most of the sidewalks where we traveled, were cobblestoned.  They were lovely streets, with designs in them.  This one was a railroad also.

We saw the fire department putting on some big show and it was very well attended.  Lots of people buying these tasty looking Brats and french fries. 

We decided to cross the river and take a look at a church we could see off in the distance.  At the top of this bridge, were some words, they looked Russian to us and we wondered what they said.

When we got to the other side of the river we looked back and saw another church where we had come from. 

Alan walking by  the church.  It looked pretty old. We went inside and it was beautiful.

The view back across the river to the North part of the city.

This is the large church that was on the north side of the river.  We didn't go in because they were charging to view it.  But we did wander around outside and take some pictures. 

Alan and I ate outside at sidewalk cafes twice that day.  Once for lunch, when I had a tasty pork sandwich and Alan had Bratwurst, and then for dinner we had steaks, potatoes, and salad.  It sounds American, but it wasn't American at all.  Very European the way it was fixed. 

One last picture of a couple over Alan's back who I watched all through dinner.  They made out for at least an hour, to the entertainment and embarassment of all the restaurant clientele.  Crazy!  So I got a couple of pics and had to post one for your enjoyment.