Berlin to Frankfurt

Frankfurt Am Main, less than 40 km from the Rhine, is first and foremost the financial center of Germany. The Frankfurt Stock Exchange, more than 400 years old, was established in 1585. Frankfurt’s modern skyline with its many skyscrapers is what gave it the moniker: "Mainhatten” which is obviously a portmanteau of the two words (Main, the river and New York’s Manhattan). These tall buildings makes for a most impressive modern “skyscraper skytline” with its own “twin towers” of the Deutsche Bank, the Eurotower etc.  Occasionally, there is a (free) Skyscraper Festival – so keep your eyes and ears open and perhaps there will be one this year or next year!

The Frankfurt Art Museum is housed at 63 Schaumiankai Street in 1815 and It offers a collection of European art over a span of about 700 years - from the beginning of the 14th century, through the Renaissance, Baroque, modernism to the present day.

The Frankfurt Botanical Garden was established in 1868 in an almost random way, a collection of about 200 exotic plants and that were in the courtyard of the castle of a duke in Wiesbaden who ran into financial difficulties and so was willing to sell them and thus they were purchased and moved here.

The area of Frankfurt Cathedral, named after St. Bartholomew, was used for religious worship for as long as 700 years before its foundation. Evidence of this has been found in remains from the late Merovingian period, from the end of the 7th century AD – proof of this is a plaque now on display in the Cathedral Museum, which was from the tomb of a girl, probably from a wealthy home.

Size doesn’t count and the proof is that the town attracts millions of tourists who come for so many reasons! Rüdesheim is a winemaking town in the Rhine Gorge, and is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in this area.  The town itself is charming and colorful with small streets meandering between half-timber houses with many decorated with wooden carvings, metal signs and a lot of greenery surrounding the area.

In 1804 a pharmacist named Peter Zaslzwedel built a summer cottage for himself on the outskirts of the city. Today, the Museum of Applied Arts Frankfurt (The Museum Angewandte Kunst), which is on Museum Street - Schaumainkai 17, stands in its place.

The Frankfurt Zoological Garden Zoo (German: Zoologischer Garten Der Stadt Frankfurt Am Main) is considered one of the oldest and largest in Europe, a green oasis in a gray city.

The postmodern museum building was designed by the Viennese architect Hans Hollein who won an open competition for the planning of the museum. It is located at Dinstrasse 10, on the banks of the River Main. To date it is composed of 3 different venues named MMK 1, 2, and 3. The MMK Zollamt (MMK3) is located in a building directly opposite the museum and the other venue (MMK2) opened within the Taunus Turm.