Frankfurt 2010 - 3

August 13 (Freitag) - We hopped on the 12 tram to Römer Platz because Robb wanted to go back to the Galeria  to buy some slacks.  He ended up buying another pair of jeans.  To get there, we had to pass the Liebfrauenkirche.  There is a neatly decorated door at the entrance. Just past that, we chanced upon a Velo Taxi, sort of like a rickshaw but upscale.    

After Robb bought his jeans, which we have to pick up tomorrow, we walked around to have a look at the Solar Gas Station. I was right, it's not a gas station, it's a station to recharge your electric vehicle.  You can just make out the plugs between the gas pump pictures.

When I turned around, I spotted the Eschenheimer Turm.

Just down the street was this department store that I thought was the building I had photographed the other day.  Since that wasn't the building I mistakenly called the opera, we walked down the street and around the corner where we found the Bourse.  You can see there are a lot of people milling around in front of the Bourse.  We went to see what was going on and found what seemed to be some kind of mid-day wine and wurst festival.  We figured we might as well join in, and got ourselves a grillwurst.  We went to get our wine and discovered they had a nice German sparkling wine.  This is the place that was selling the wine (and after the crowd had thinned out).  We each got a glass.  So for about 9€ total, we had a great lunch.  Robb bought a bottle of the wine to take back to the hotel.

On the way back to the tram station, we passed a fruit stand that had this huge strawberry in front.

We had dinner again at Baseler Eck.  We both had the Jägerschnitzel with a fantastic mushroom cream sauce.  I drank bier and Robb drank rotwein (red wine).  I wasn't hungry at all and asked if my portion could be small.  Mine was about half the size of Robb's.

August 14 (Samtag) - If you're thinking of living in Europe, consider Germany.  Everything here costs less.  An added bonus is that almost everybody speaks English and is happy to do so, unlike in France.  If you love France, Germany is just next door.  You can be in Paris in a few hours, unless you make the same mistake we made a few years ago, and get on the wrong train.

We took the tram to Römer Platz, where we went back to the Galeria to get Robb's jeans.  Then Brave Bob decided we could walk all over Frankfurt to find the Hard Rock Cafe.  We walked and asked directions.  We walked and asked directions.  And then, we walked and asked directions.  Most of the taxi drivers had no idea (excuse me, you drive a taxi and you don't know the whereabouts of a world famous institution?).  We did not find it, but we had walked all the way to the Steinberger Frankfurter Hof, a five-star hotel, at which we will have dinner tonight.  We further walked down to Willy Brandt Platz, where having had enough walking, we caught the tram.

It was nearly 17h00 when we returned to the hotel and we were both quite tired.  We Googled the Hard Rock and discovered it had moved to Sachsenhausen on the other side of the River Main.  No wonder no one knew where it was.  We slept a bit and then around 20h00, prepared to go to dinner.

We had dinner at Oscars in the Frankfurter Hof.  We were the only ones sitting inside.  I still can't believe people will sit outside in this chilly weather.  Of course, you people who live in the mountains are probably snickering at our idea of chilly.

Dinner was St. Pierre, which is a white meat fish, with a great sauce and side of which I thought was ratatouille, but wasn't (don't ask, I don't know).

After dinner, we walked down to Willy Brandt Platz, again, and got the tram to Baseler Platz.

These are today's photos:  the Zeil (as far as the trees go, so goes the Zeil) , a statue in Goethe Platz (I'm sorry, I can't remember who or what it depicts), KaiserstrassenFest, which we will check out since it's only a couple blocks from the hotel, the Neue Oper (the New Opera), a street sign (the ß is the German way to write double 's'), another Römer Platz photo, and, finally, St. Bartholomeus' Cathedral.

August 15 (Sonntag) - It's cold and wet.  Watching a dive meet from Budapest on EuroSport Live.

The rain let up around four-ish, so we bundled up and went down to catch a tram  We took the number 16 this time.  It was a really great ride from end (Ginnheim) to end (Zur Stadtgrenze - that wasn't really the name of the place but I couldn't find anything with the name on it and this was just outside the tram-) The ZS stop was the first time they didn't make us get off the tram.

Along the route we saw some neat stuff, but because of the rain, I could only get a few pictures.  The Leaning Tower (which wasn't really, it was just the way I shot the picture).  The same holds true of the Leaning Kirsche.  Which is really Frauenfriedenskirche.  We first caught sight of the TV Tower in the fog.  Then we got a better view.  I think these photos came out pretty good considering I was taking them from a moving tram.

The number 16 goes through Sachsenhausen, which is a very nice area on the other side of the Main (in Paris it would be called Rive Gauche, so I guess in German, you can call it Linken Ufer) with lots of great looking restaurants, some of which we'll definitely try before we leave.

Dinner at Gaylord India.  It was very busy tonight. I like the food warmers they bring out pre-dinner.  Dinner tonight was Sag Meat for me (the nearest container in the photo), and lamb chops for Robb.  I had never heard of Sag Meat, but it was really good.

Incredibly, we found ourselves going to bed at 22h30.

You can see all the Frankfurt pictures here - Frankfurt 

Bis zum nächsten mal, meine Freunde