Frankfurt

Florian had some personal business to conduct in Frankfurt, the financial capital of Europe. He got his degree in physical therapy there a couple of years ago.  We stayed at inexpensive hotel.

Eagles are to Frankfurt what bears are to Berlin.

We bought an unlimited U-Bahn ticket to see all the sights we could in a morning, including the St. Bartholomew's Cathedral.  The entire interior was restored after World War II.

 

Time swung freely in a nearby art museum, the Schirn Kunsthalle.

The exterior of the Rathaus looks over a sunny, cobblestoned square.

It was too early for wurst.

There's a lovely courtyard tucked behind the Rathaus.

Allied bombing blew off the dome of St. Paul's Church, now beautifully restored.

German pensions are administered in the building behind me.  The moment resonated for me if not for the other guy.

Goethe's father yelled for him to come home for dinner through this window.

My Zeil is an enormous mall in the city center.  "Next level shopping," indeed.

Here's what you see above the main entrance.  Locals say the hole sucks the money right out of you.  

We rode escalators and an elevator to the top.

Leave it to Florian to know where to get free views of the city.

We also found some bunnies and chicks living high on the hog.

I loved the contrast between old and new throughout Germany.

It can be difficult to keep up with Florian but you sure do see a lot.  Here's the entrance to the Thurn and Taxis Palace

. . . a building across from the stock exchange

. . . and a pizza made of fruit gum candy.

This drop-by chapel in Frankfurt, part of a convent, makes it easy for bustling capitalists to find time to worship during the day in between purchases at My Zeil.

The stained glass inside the church is modern.

Wurst time.  The lines were long inside a glass-enclosed market hall that looked like a relic of the Industrial Age.

We placed our orders with a woman who cut the wurst to size and handed it to us on a paper platter with a hard roll and a smear of mustard.

Yum.

We did some food and wine shopping, too.  Florian loves his wurst.

Too bad we couldn't take advantage of the fresh fish, cut flowers and seeds, too!

En route to the European Central Bank for a photo op in front of the euro sign, our mouths watered at a beautifully decorated chocolate store.

We saw a Game Of Thrones ad on the clean and colorful U-Bahn.  "You win or you die" doesn't make much sense in Frankfurt, which was almost completely obliterated less than a century ago.