This city was our last port of call on our December Christmas Market trip, thrown into the itinerary as a departure point for Singapore and then home to Australia. Hence, I allocated just two days and now I’m kicking myself. This German economic powerhouse oft called ‘Bankfurt’ plays host to banking and telecommunications giants, is an artistic centre and successfully showcases Germany as a modern, cutting edge country. One in three people in Frankfurt are non German, so it heaves with a cosmopolitan energy unlike other German places we’ve visited. Should’ve stayed longer.
There is an old town, albeit quite small where dark brown brick dominates. It’s a reconstruction since the original was bombed in WWII. Goethe’s House is here and I should have visited, admirer as I am of ‘Faust’. The world’s best Natural History Museum is here as is the Stadel Museum (full to the brim with art works) and seven other museums. It pains me to say I didn’t see any of them. So that, in a nutshell is why I’ll be returning to Frankfurt.
I’m back in Oz now; my ‘pretty’ trip has ended. There’s not too much that’s pretty here in Australia unfortunately. It’s decidedly gritty. The bushfires are burning everything in their paths; the land (16 million hectares), the animals (half a billion), the buildings (2500) and people (27 dead). Things are falling apart. It’s time for me to chew the cud, consider the next few months, lend a helping hand – privileged as I am not to have been in disaster’s path.
Until our next trip, Auf Wiedersehen.
Go and See 