Today started after a really good sleep, I reckon I’m super lucky that I don’t seem to get hit much with jet lag.

We began by heading across the road to the train station, to double check where we need to catch tomorrow’s train from, but also to grab a bite to eat. Today we had the very traditional German breakfast of croissants and coffee 🙂 Good value at €4.50, from a bar inside the station. And despite being 8am, there were people enjoying beer and wine.

Good old Frankfurt am Main Hbf was bustling at this time of day – commuters, tourists, you name it, they were there. It was great to see the place so alive, and even greater to see the amazing variety of food outlets dotted across its numerous platforms, most with an eager queue of folks hoping to grab a snack and/or coffee before heading off to places new. And the station itself is so pretty!

We saw one stall with something that should be standard in every home, a pretzel machine. Ok, more of a pretzel toasting roller, but it resulted in the freshest pretzels, so we had to grab two. And oh man, fresh warm pretzel, you can’t beat it. One thing I’ve really noticed is so many places selling so many varieties of bread , there really is something for every (gluten tolerant) body, all looking super fresh and super delicious.

Then quickly back to the room to get organised before going out again. Well it would have been quick if the door actually opened. That’s one way to generate a nervous moment for any tourist. I guess like all good old buildings, this one’s having it’s own little bit of subsidence and whatnot, but once we were (ok, once Perry was) able to find the point where the door was sticking, we were able to open it before we ripped the handle right out of the door itself. The whole place did smell of fresh paint when we arrived, maybe some of it wasn’t 100% dry yet!

We figured out the transport ticket we probably should have bought yesterday as well. There’s a day ticket that lets you travel around Frankfurt by bus, tram, train, S-Bahn (regular train), U-Bahn (Underground) for as much of like for the day. Quite a sensible system once you figure that out, and very sensible to let someone get where they need to be by any means required, without charging them extra just because they may switch was tram to train. Are you listening, Sydney? Of course not. So anyway we hopped on a number 12 tram for our first destination, Kleinmarkthalle.

I’m sure you’ll be unsurprised as I am to know it means “Small Market Hall”. 🙂 It was reminiscent of the fresh food part of the Queen Vic markets in melbourne, a bit. But safe to say there was a lot more emphasis on meat, sausages, salamis, and every variation of the above. Was nice to have a quick wander through and of course grab a few photos.

On the way back we passed the best shop ever – “Australien Shop”. Sadly it was closed but the window display was a treat. Exotic things like a can of Solo, or a handy kit of Pavlova Magic and John West Passionfruit pulp. Enough to make a tourist homesick 🙂

Next up, we’d seen bits of the city by bus yesterday, so why not by boat today? The Main boat tour was on one of the many Main boats, I’m sure ours wan’t the main Main one though. (Main is more pronounced like ‘mine’ if that helps). We bought tickets for the first cruise of the day, 11:00, and then set off to kill some time while with a coffee while waiting for it to start. We went back to the touristy old-town, which is pretty but, at the time, kinda deserted. The nearest I can think of is Darling Harbour of old – mainly made for tourists, and the local know better and stay away. Unlike Darling Harbour though, even the cafe in the middle of tourist central didn’t charge like a wounded bull, which was a nice surprise. The coffee was, well, coffee. Maybe a 5 on the famous iScott Coffee Scale.

OK. Cruise time. We were sitting on the boat a little while before the tour started, and here’s something about Frankfurt, at least near the old town, you’ll never be stuck wondering what the time is. Every hour it’s like the churches and assorted civic buildings in the area all get together and ring their bells, it sounds like a competition. So we listened to the back-and-forth of the big Frankfurt 11AM ding-off to see who they would ring in (see what I did there) as the winner. Or at least that’s kinda what it sounded like. Or to summarise: Lots of bells ringing at once on the hour.

Making our way to the top deck of the boat, it started with a helpful reminder:

They weren’t kidding, some of them were a bit of a close call.

The commentary along the way taught us a few things, some of which we had learned already from the bus tour, but some things were new. One great thing, I’m guessing the Main wasn’t always the cleanest river after many years of industry, but it is now cleaner than ever and entirely fishable, i.e. you can actually eat the fish you catch in the river. Nice! (If you like fish).

The first bridge over the Main (so I guess it really was the main Main bridge) was recorded as being around since at least the 1500s. The Iron Bridge, where we started our cruise, was built in the 1800s and was a citizen-lead endeavour, basically a nifty bit of 19th century crowdfunding, and it paid for itself pretty quickly thanks to a 1 penny toll. Every bridge we passed under had a story – the most used rail bridge in Frankfurt, the bridge with lanes for people, trams and traffic, the bridgiest bridge to ever have bridged… They all had a story, I didn’t say they were all exciting though. Anyway let me distract you with a ton of pictures we took along the way.

The cruise itself though was really nice – serene, relaxing, educational. The boat itself was near silent, it really was a very pleasant way to pass the time. And top marks to Absolutely Every Single Person standing on a bridge we passed under, as without fail, every stupid tourist wave I did was met with an equally enthusiastic wave back. Hurrah! Who cares if they may have been muttering “Stupid tourist!” under their breath, be they young or old or in between, no one left me hanging.

All this waving, in addition to relaxing and looking at waterways and bridges and bridges and bridges (and also bridges) is enough to make anyone hungry, so lunch was next on the agenda. So back to the Old Town (as it is so close by) and the mission was to find somewhere that fulfilled one of my most important travel criteria – whilst in Frankfurt, you must have a Frankfurt, right? Right. Check these photos and see if we came good on that plan.

It was as tasty as it looked. Five different types of sausage, with potato and sauerkraut, and again not at completely crazy-tourist-rip-off prices. If we didn’t have more things to do in the afternoon it would have been perfect washed down with a nice cold beer… but I know I then would have been asleep for while afterwards so thought better of it. I knew by this point that when we got to dinner, it was going to be a small one!

We next wandered around the main shopping streets, another day of amazing mostly-sunny weather, which has been a treat. We found some fun shops like Hema, a kind of light hearted little department store with an emphasis on party decorations, and the Galeria, which was basically Pitt St Myer. The shopping mall we went to (myZeil) was massive, and the front was pretty cool with its whole ‘get sucked into the vortex’ style glass construction, which carried on through the centre itself. Since it was May the 4th – international Star Wars Day, one of the pop culture shops really got in the spirit by having these two standing out the front. May the 4th be with you! The Lego shop was also getting in on the action a bit.

Another interesting bit of MyZeil was a four-storey-plus escalator taking you straight up to the fancy food court. AC/DC was right – it’s a long way to the top when you want a sausage roll.

After buying a few essentials (one of the old USB chargers we took with us was buzzing in a threatening manner, so it went straight in the bin), I wanted to get a close look at that unusual subway entrance that we’d seen from the bus trip. And with free travel for the day, should be easy enough right? Again, Frankfurt, what is it with you and helpful signage? I’m sure without my phone I would never have found the station, the entrance was basically a short dingy alcove in a building with a small “U” marked on the outside, and that was it. Not entirely sure if we were taking a lift to the U-bahn or to a weird tourist-trapping dungeon from which we may never return (thanks in part to the buttons in the lift not making any sense at all, to us at least), we arrived somewhere near the platform at Römer station, even at the right platform to get us to our destination, Bockenheimer Warte. The U-Bahn, like the trams and the S-Bahn, was clean and comfy and turned up on time. The stations, at least the three we ended up visiting today, we spacious and nicely decorated, for a subway. Of course we didn’t pick the right exit from Bockenheimer Warte the first time, but not to worry, the result of our quest was in site, just had to cross a few roads. And here it is – one of the grooviest subway entrances I’ve ever seen, should be more of it I say!

And because I am a nerd, here are other photos of the u-Bahn and some of its stations

It was a quick trip back to the Main (main) station and back to the hotel to download all the photos off the camera and start writing up the events of the day.

We weren’t out for a big or exciting evening – just a quick snack in the train station was enough after today’s huge sausage-packed lunch. We leave the hotel super early tomorrow for our next bit of the adventure, so in the hope we won’t be complete zombies for that, it’s nearly time to turn in.

So, thank you Germany, thank you Frankfurt – you’ve made for a nice start to our trip, and that’s the main (Main) thing!