Frankfurt, Germany

08.26.2008
Erbach, Germany

Today we took the train into Frankfurt and picked Jeff (my friend from RPI who’s also going to Rome) and MJ, his high school friend who’s studying in Germany for nearly two years. We took the train to the main Frankfurt station, stored their bags in lockers, and set out to explore the city (despite the fact that the two boys were sleep-deprived and jet lagged). We walked to the main EU bank, which has a huge statue of a Euro symbol in front of it and is apparently a huge tourist attraction. Along the way there, I was continually amazed at how many old, ornate buildings are used as apartments above (I’m assuming) and regular stores below…everything from clothes to cell phones, cafés to tourist traps selling postcards and “Frankfurt Police” sweatshirts. We then cut through the city and walked along the Mein River. We were laughing at Marianne, because she was the only one with her nose in a tour book even though she was the only native (the map was in book was in German, to our credit).
We soon cut in in search of a famous building called Römer. Along the way, however, we stopped by a beautiful church named St. Leonhardkirche and were pleased to find the door open. We wandered in and were amazed by the ornate details, the high spider vaulted ceilings (I’ve come to find spider vaulting quite popular in Germany so far), and the beautiful altar. After looking around for a bit, a woman there approached us and began to tell us the history of the church in German, with Marianne translating. Much of the church is from the 12th century, making it one of Frankfurt’s oldest churches. At one point, the church was very poor and had to sell off most of its interior. Later (obviously this is a quite abridged story, I can’t remember details), pieces were donated from other churches to help reestablish this one. One of the triptych altars was quite mismatched: the bottom piece, the center, and the two outer “doors” were clearly of different styles. She told us that there was a priest so desperate to restore the church that he acquired pieces from various times just to complete the collection, haphazard though it may be. In one of the side aisles, she showed us the old sanctuary that used to be used for baptisms, which was covered be beautiful vaulting, much of which didn’t even touch the ceiling and was free-standing. She explained that in the olden days, it was common for architects to come and study this particular section of this church because there was nothing like it and it was a marvel it was structural. Parts of the vaulting were also decorated with family crests, and she explained that these had been decorated to honor families that had contributed to the restoration of the church.
On our way to Römer, we also stopped in the former German Parliament building. During the war, as lot of it was destroyed and had to be rebuilt, so much of what we saw was not original. A circular building, the first floor had been converted into a kind of museum, depicting the history of the building, etc. Once we climbed to the second storey, we entered a very high space. This was where meetings were held, as the room was filled with chairs facing a stage-like area with a podium in the front. The interior was all white, with tall windows lining the circumference. The most breathtaking part was the ceiling. Looking up, I realized that the building was actually ovular, not circular. There was an interesting truss/beam system supporting the weight of the roof and the oculus (giant hole à la Pantheon) in the center. Lots of light was pouring in, and the white walls and long windows really drew your eyes upwards.
Next we crossed the street and entered a large square, which was home to the Römer, a church, and lots of traditional-looking German buildings. We didn’t go into any of them, but just looked around. Marianne explained that after large sports games, it was traditional for the German team to come out on the balcony if they were victorious, greeting large crowds below them. From the square, we could see the spire of St. Bartholomäus, the Frankfurt Cathedral, and since I have a huge weakness for pretty old churches, we headed that way.
The front of the cathedral was under renovation, so I didn’t take too many exterior pictures, but the interior more than made up for this. Huge, huge ceilings, beautiful vaulting, beautiful windows, the largest organ I’ve ever seen, and great colors: the interior was white stucco and pinkish brick. We walked around, taking in the space and taking tons of pictures. Marianne kept laughing at my gasps of excitement as I explored the spaces more and more. There’s really only so much you can write about a church interior though, so I’ll post pictures to supplement.
After they managed to tear me away from the cathedral, we went and got pretzels and sat down outside for a while. The pigeons here are so tame! I dropped a bit of my pretzel accidently and a pigeon was walking under the table in and out of our feet to get at it, and he totally didn’t mind that we were there. The rest of the day in the city was pretty much spent making our way back to the train station with a few quick stops. We walked by the stock exchange building, which was huge and looked very traditionally old. We then went to the Old Opera House (which Marianne said was strange, because she didn’t think there was a New Opera House), but couldn’t get in, so just looked at it from the outside and sat down to give our feet a break. Again, it was a very pretty, very old building. We then walked back to the train station. The station itself is beautiful. Most of the stations I’ve encountered so far in Germany have used lots of steel and glass, but this one was so large it took the cake. Barrel vaults run along the length of the tracks and span maybe 3-4 platforms. The piers supporting them at the connections and along their lengths are intricately designed steel. The ceiling itself is primarily glass, so the overall feeling was spectacular. We ended up having to deal with many delays, but ended up getting back to Marianne’s home in Erbach in one piece.
We stopped by the grocery store in her town later that night and cooked dinner for ourselves and picked up two different 6-packs of Pilsners. Dinner was delicious and German bier is tasty. All in all a good night staying up late just hanging out together.

PICTURES: the St. Leonhardkirche organ loft, 2 pictures of the ceiling from St. Bartholomäus, and the train station