Frankfurt - a lot more than I expected!
Written: Jan 23 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Very convenient to get to from the airport, cosmopolitan, easy to get a quick taste of Germany, great connections to other places
Cons: Expensive, still doesn't stand on it's own as a "must go" destination (but definitely worth it if you've got transit time to kill)
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| cinimod's Full Review: Frankfurt am Main |
Would you believe that I’ve been to Frankfurt airport almost 100 times over the last 30 years, but I never went into the city until about 3 years ago?
A lot of people think that Frankfurt is a boring financial center with boring skyscrapers in a boring country filled with boring people. Well, maybe the skyscrapers aren’t boring…until 3 years ago, I thought the same. Frankfurt airport was just a transit point where I had to change planes to go where I wanted to go. Then that fateful day came, when I was forced to go into the city for a job interview.
The first big surprise was how close to the city the airport is – it took 10 minutes by the local public transport (S-bahn) to get to the central train station. From there, you are within walking distance of the old town. Indeed, you would not guess it, looking at all the skyscrapers from the air, but the old town is pretty big and has many buildings which are from the 16th and 17th centuries. In fact, some of them even date back 700 years or more.
From the old town, I found my way to the Main river (ah, so that’s why the airport is called Frankfurt/Main!). It was a sunny warm evening in May, and it was a very pleasant walk along the riverbank, watching people walking their dogs, lazing in the sun, or fishing. I was pretty surprised to see people fishing, but I didn’t hang around long enough to find out if they caught anything – maybe somebody from Frankfurt can comment on this!
Well, that was in May 1996 – I then had the chance exactly one year ago to experience Frankfurt for a full 2 months in the midst of winter. Walking along the river was not so much fun with the icy wind, but I did find more surprises about the area near Frankfurt. I took a car and headed for the Taunus hills, which is a 30 minute drive from Frankfurt to the Northwest. It was a winter wonderland there – whereas in Frankfurt, the snow does not stay long, and becomes grey slush within a couple of days, up in the hills there was over a foot of pristine snow, and lots of people enjoying it.
All this would not have been remarkable, except that I believe that even most Germans do not realize that there is more to Frankfurt than the airport! I say this from the position of having spent over 2 years in various parts of Germany. Anyway, here are a few little “insider” tips on Frankfurt:
1. Car rental – you might find that to rent an Audi A4 costs almost the same as renting a VW Polo. This was the case for me with Europcar at the airport.
2. Check out the great ice-cream sundaes at the italian pizzerias in the main square of the old town (can’t remember the name, maybe Roemerplatz?).
3. Lots of quaint old pubs serving the local speciality, cider, on the other side of the river (south) in the district of Alt-Sachsenhausen.
4. If you have a couple of days, take the train or even better, the boat, to Cologne. It is a very scenic trip along the Rhine river. Another great place you can reach in an hour is Heidelberg.
So next time you find yourself on transit with a couple of hours to spare in Frankfurt, go check it out! You might find more of Germany than you expected.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
cinimod
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Member: Dominic Lim
Location: World citizen (in an ideal world)
Reviews written: 42
Trusted by: 53 members
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