Germany (Lonely Planet, 6th Edition) - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [459]
The well-regarded Museum für Moderne Kunst (Museum of Modern Art; 2123 0447; www.mmk-frankfurt.de; Domstrasse 10; Dom/Römer; adult/student & senior €8/4; 10am-6pm Tue-Sun, to 8pm Wed), dubbed the ‘slice of cake’ because of its distinctive triangular footprint, focuses on European and American art from the 1960s to the present, with frequent temporary exhibits. The permanent collection (not always on display) includes works by Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg and Joseph Beuys.
In 2011 the Historisches Museum ( 2123 5599; www.historisches-museum.frankfurt.de, in German; Saalgasse 19; Dom/Römer; adult/concession €4/2; 10am-6pm Tue-Sun, to 9pm Wed), established to showcase Frankfurt’s long and fascinating history, will move across the square to several old town houses. The modern concrete monstrosity that the museum’s weak exhibits currently occupy – built, unsurprisingly, in 1972 – will then be demolished and replaced.
INNENSTADT
The area delineated by the Alte Oper, Konstablerwache and Willy-Brandt-Platz U-Bahn stations serves as the city’s financial, business and commercial centre. The broad, pedestrians-only Zeil, Frankfurt’s main shopping precinct, is great for strolling.
The famous old Börse (Stock Exchange; 2111 1515; visitors.centre@deutsche-boerse.com; Börsenplatz; Hauptwache; guided tour 10am, 11am & noon Mon-Fri, observation-platform visits 9.30am, 10.30am & 11.30am Mon-Fri) is an impressively colonnaded, neoclassical structure from 1843 whose porch is decorated with allegorical statues of the five continents. Frenzied buying and selling are a thing of the past but you can see the all-electronic trading floor on a free tour (in German and English). Book by telephone or email at least 24 hours ahead, and bring ID.
In the square out front, a sculpture entitled Bulle und Bär depicts a showdown between a bull and a bear in which the former clearly has the upper hoof.
Fans of the Enlightenment and German literature may want to drop by the Goethe-Haus ( 138 800; www.goethehaus-frankfurt.de; Grosser Hirschgraben 23-25; Willy-Brandt-Platz; adult/student €5/2.50; 10am-6pm Mon-Sat, 10am-5.30pm Sun), birthplace of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). The furnishings are mainly reproductions but original pieces include Goethe’s grandmother’s writing desk and the great man’s childhood puppet theatre. The Gemäldegalerie displays paintings from Goethe’s time. PDA tours (€2) are available in German, English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
You can’t go inside the 148m-high Eurotower (Kaiserstrasse 29; Willy-Brandt-Platz), home of the European Central Bank, but outside you can see the enormous blue-and-gold euro symbol beloved of TV talking heads reporting on EU financial news. At the ground-floor Info Shop ( 2440 4798) you can purchase euro coins from all over the eurozone.
Inaugurated in 1880, the Renaissance-style Alte Oper (Old Opera House; Click here) was burnt out in 1944, narrowly avoiding being razed and replaced with 1960s cubes, and was finally reconstructed (1976–81) to resemble the original, its facade graced with statues of Goethe and Mozart. The interior is modern.
In a square in the heart of the city’s main gay and lesbian area is the gay and lesbian memorial (cnr Alte Gasse & Schäfergasse; Konstablerwache), in the form of an angel, which commemorates the many homosexuals persecuted and killed by the Nazis. It’s deliberate that the statue’s head is nearly severed from the body.
JEWISH SITES
Two notable museums take a look at nine centuries of Jewish life in Frankfurt. In 1933 the Jewish community here, numbering some 26,000, was Germany’s second-largest.
The Jüdisches Museum ( 2123 5000; www.jewishmuseum.de; Untermainkai 14-15; Willy-Brandt-Platz; adult/student €4/2; 10am-5pm Tue-Sun, to 8pm Wed), on the north Main bank in the former residence of the