6/5 – A day in Rothenburg…or not!

We are up really early today because we have a car rented at 7am to go to Rothenburg. It is Monday, so virtually every single museum here in Frankfurt, of which there are tons – there is a whole area across the river that is nothing but museums – is closed, so we figure we’ll just take a drive through the German countryside and go to the medieval town of Rothenburg to explore. It will probably be crazy crowded with tourists, but hey, we’ll manage it!

So, we set our alarm for the ungodly hour of 5:30am, got ready, then hit the train station because……there is a Dunkin’ Donuts there that opens at 6am! Don’t hate on us. We NEED coffee!!!! Which we get – perfectly brewed real Dunkin’ Donuts coffee that we enjoy sitting in bench chairs in the train station because we are thrown out of the table in the food court due to the fact that Dunkin’ Donuts isn’t actually located IN the food court but next door. We get why they have to police it. I mean we are sharing our chairs with some of the many random wandering people here – so we can imagine if the food court didn’t have a policing system.

Around 6:40 we walk across the street to the Intercity hotel and the Enterprise rental counter. We’re early, we know, but we figured this way they would know we are here and be ready at 7 for our car. Um. Not exactly. First off, the rental guy greets us, checks our reservation and says it will be a bit, we are trying to find a car for you. Um. Ok. Shouldn’t you already have a car? You can see we are pre-booked, and we’ve already signed in and done all the paperwork online, so all we have to do – according to the app – is show the completed check in to the rental agent – along with our driver’s license and credit card. Ok, well, it isn’t 7am yet, we’ll wait. And wait. And wait. While some other guy comes up to the counter and obviously has some sort of problem because the agent is with him forever – and on the phone doing something – and then going downstairs into the garage for almost 15 minutes doing something. Anyhow, you get the picture.

Time is ticking, ticking, ticking away. It is almost 7:30 by the time we get up to the counter for our turn. The agent asks for our license and we hand it over along with our credit card. He gives the card back, saying he won’t need that until the end, and then looks at everything and asks for our passport. Huh? None of the online information – not on the booking or the app check in says passport. Well, no problem, we have a color copy of the passport that we’ve used all over. Oh, no. The agent says he won’t accept that. What? Really? You make us wait almost an hour for a car that have pre-booked and pre-checked in for and now you tell us you won’t accept something that we weren’t even supposed to have for you? What the ……????

Needless to say, we are not really ticked off. The agent guy isn’t budging, so we just said fine – cancel the booking. We’re not jumping through hoops for you when you’ve been nothing but a horrible customer service representative. And we’ve been nothing but patient and nice. But now, what to do?

Regrouping at the hotel, we look at a couple of different options, ending up booking the Frankfurt Walking tour we had looked at previously, but weren’t going to have time to do because of, ahem, Rothenburg. And you know what? Things happen for a reason! We met the tour group in the Romer at 10am and had the absolute best time!

First of all, the owner of the tour company is a hysterical curmudgeon originally from Ohio, but living in Germany for who knows how long. The tour guide is a doll from Corfu, Angelicki, who is married to an American living here now. We have a huge group, but all relatively nice and who can all keep up (oh thank the lord!). And while we go to a bunch of the places we have already seen – we get the history and the detail we had no clue about yesterday. Perfect!

We start in the Romer, and Angelicki first explains that what we thought was a “festival” was actually preparations for a huge celebration party on Saturday for the German Football championships. They started setting up on Thursday, and the party was supposed to happen on Saturday, but the Frankfurt team lost, so there was no celebration. What? Really? They did all this for nothing? And now they are tearing it down? Oh wow – yeah – these people are truly football crazy!

With that little tidbit, we move off through the square, learning that this is the “new” old town. It was all rebuilt after the war. The city was essentially razed during WWII, the only thing still standing was the cathedral because it was built of stone while everything else was wood. It wasn’t the bombing, per se, that destroyed the city, it was the incendiary nature of the bombs. They dropped them and let the fire to the rest. And boy did it do the rest – we saw the pictures yesterday in the museums!

In the square, we learn about Romer, the city hall, and the statue of Scales of Justice standing in the idle of the square. They didn’t make her blindfolded because they wanted her to be looking into the city hall to keep them honest (I think). Then we move on to the Stoltze statue, which is the only original piece left in this part of the town. Stoltze was a famous Frankfurt poet, which is why he is remembered here.

Angelicki tells us that after the town was razed, the city rebuilt here, but instead of traditional buildings and houses, they built a huge mall here (sounds like the Asheville plan for downtown oh so many years ago!). For whatever reason, at some point in time, factions rose up pressuring the city to rebuild in the traditional old town format, and they actually did. Tearing down the mall and rebuilding in the traditional old style. They took great pains to make this area as realistic as possible, with shops on the street level and apartments up above. They even went to great lengths to have the same sort of shops in the same locations – a butcher shop where the butcher was, etc.

They used slate for the roofing material as well as on the fronts of some of the houses. Slate is found here in abundance, and very easy to use, so it was easy to be true to the old style of building. They also included what is known as the “Frankfurt nose,” that little kick out at the top of the inverted V on the roofs of the buildings.

Moving through the New Old town, we see lots of different building decorations and learn that there were no actual addresses in the old days. The houses were called by the names of their decorations. Like the one opposite the cathedral, with the golden scales – known as, of course, the Golden Scale house.

Next we head into the Cathedral where there is a great poster explaining how the British bombed the city and showing how the Frankfurters tried to protect the church, by building these concrete bomb type shelters around the altars that they couldn’t move. Here, as in the Jewish museum, is a picture of the bombed out city showing only he cathedral still intact. Moving inside the Cathedral proper, we see all the different family crests of the ruling council of the city – Frankfurt was one of the only Imperial cities with a Council who made the rules – and the amazing massive organs with more pipes than you could ever count! We also see the only original stained glass to survive the bombing – it is the only one with vibrant colors associated with these types of cathedrals. The artist who was commissioned to design the new windows went with a more muted color palette, but did use any fragments of original windows in the designs – as shown in one window with little teeny pieces of red glass up in the flower design at the top of the window.

In one of the fits of modernity here in Frankfurt, the powers that be decided that the church should be painted all white inside and proceeded to cover up the original reddish sand color that was natural to the stone used to build the church. They even went so far as paint over the original murals that were above the priests chairs in the Apse! Crazily, this actually preserved the murals when there was a huge fire inside the cathedral! When it was time to renovate from the fire, they decided to go back to the original, traditional color schematic and managed to uncover the murals intact – the white paint actually protected them.

Another oddity here – Saint Bartholomew is the patron saint of this cathedral. There is an awfully graphic painting of him being flayed by his persecutors. But because of this – he is considered the patron saint of leatherworkers! That is just grisly. Ugh.

Ok – we’re out of the cathedral now! Walking back through Romer, stopping at the Book burning memorial! This tour was worth it before – now it is totally worth it because I was trying to find this damn memorial and couldn’t ever figure out where it was here. Turns out it is right in the middle of the square – and would have been surrounding by all the football fencing yesterday so no way would we have seen it. At any rate, this is a memorial to book burning that happened in 1933 – way before the Nazi’s really took over – and it has a quote by Heine, one of the philosophers from 1820, that basically says when men burn books, they will burn men next. Fairly accurate – even before his time!

Then we pass the only original half-timber house to survive the bombing, basically because the fire brigade was getting water from the river right in front of the house, and doused it while they were trying to save the rest of the town. From here we move over to the Eiserner Steg, the Iron Bridge, which has a lovely view down the river Main, as well as plaques on the wall to indicate the high water marks of the big floods. Here we have beautiful views across the river to the museum street and then back again across Frankfurt, for the skyline. Frankfurt is the only city with a skyline as such, even though they don’t have too many tall buildings, they have more than most other cities and are very proud of their skyline!

From here we walk to an old monastery which is situated on the oldest remaining street in Frankfurt, with the ancient cobblestones to prove it. Inside we tour the portico area with refreshed murals of baby Jesus and a story about how the monastery was disbanded during reformation.

Now we head to the new area of the city, passing the Johan Goethe house with the Romantik museum – where we are planning to visit this afternoon – and on past a piece of the Berlin Wall – over to the original Bourse with the Bull and Bear statues.

Then it is time for our “lunch” break at the Kleinmarkthalle market. Angelicki shows us a couple of vendors for schnitzel with green sauce – a fresh herb sauce she raves about – and an 82 year old lady who has the best wurst sandwiches anywhere. She also shows us Spargel – white asparagus only in season for a few weeks now in June. Oh yum! Spargel. We’re all in on that! We are planning on a late lunch at one of the cafes on the Romer, so here, we decide to just snack on a pretzel and have a beer and wine. The pretzel is the best – excellent sea salted heaven! And the beer and wine? Well we manage to find the Greek market stall so the beer is Mythos of all things! Ed’s a happy camper and my wine is equally good – perfect snack!

The last part of our walk takes us over to the location of the actual Judengrasse. We walk past my restaurant on the way! Taverna Alexander’s – hey we should come back here for lunch! – and then stop at the plaque the American military put up in memorial to the synagogue that was burned down by “nazi criminals” on Kristallnacht. To make this tour even more worthwhile, Angelicki shows us the stumble stones! I had wanted to see these too – but again, was foiled by Google maps in trying to find them. These are little bronze plaques that have the names of people who were sent to the concentration camps during the holocaust. The idea is that you would stumble upon them, and then have to bend over to read them, thus showing your reverence to those who have been lost. Totally incredible!

Our final stop is the Judengasse museum with the Holocaust memorial, made out of pieces of brick and block form the Judengasse houses. From here, we walk around the cemetery looking at all the names on the wall of those lost in the Holocaust – as we did yesterday – although today, Angelicki shows us the Frank family plaques. We never even thought to look from them yesterday! So focused were we on looking for Einbinders! Which we did not find. But today, we get the chance to see the Frank plaques and pay tribute to them and others by placing a rock on top of the plaque to let them – and others know – their grave has been visited.

What a great tour! Much better than going to Rothenberg – we’re certain! And then we go to the little café we chose for lunch – being joined by Raymond who was on the tour with us and is traveling to the Nederlands for a Blues festival this weekend. A thoroughly fun morning and early afternoon! Even if the waitress is gruff with us and won’t let us share a big .5 liter of Apfelwein (Apple wine) and keeps showing us the menu saying outside is only big glasses. Ok, ok, lady fine! Ed and I also share a Krakowurst and a Handclassewurst (cheese wurst) which are both really really good and make for an excellent filling lunch!

We bid farewell to Raymond who wanders off to do his own thing and we head to the Goethe house museum to be thoroughly enthralled with the old house where the poet and his family lived, the beautiful courtyard, the different rooms and even his birth notice hanging on the wall.

On the other side of the house is the Romantik museum which has exhibits explaining how romanticism came to be through art during Goethe’s time and how the family were huge collectors. Here there is tons of art and lots of original artifacts, like an original illustrated Brothers Grimm fairy tale book. And a bunch of other artists and people who we need to know look up online – like the guy who chronicled a nun who developed stigmata. Crazy stories! But well worth the time on this afternoon!

Walking back to the hotel we double check that Baseler Eck, our restaurant choice, is indeed going to open – and it is, then hit the convenience store for more favorably priced drinks – before returning to said Baseler Eck for a fabulous last night in Germany dinner! This place is really and truly the typical old German Pub. It is run by what appears to be a husband and wife, who are just lovely, and set up with long communal tables and big booths. We arrived about 6:45 because we read where they can get busy. This place is where all the airline crews come – and they have an entire wall with airline stickers and paraphernalia. However, when we enter, we are happy to see that we are the only people here – and throughout our meal, not a lot of folks come in, and no airline crews. Works for us.

We settle in at a big booth and peruse the menu. Joy! They have Spargel! We’re so excited! It’s our last night, so we are blowing it out from a food perspective! I order the Spargel with pork schnitzel and ask if I can have green sauce with the schnitzel. The husband (who knows? But he’s the one who took our order) says he can do that – bless you – and Ed orders the pig’s knuckle, because, well, really, what is more German than that?

The food comes out and it is excellent – massive proportions, particularly the pig’s kuckle! But the Spargel is huge too – and it is all so good and so filling! The green sauce is extremely good – fresh and herb and yogurty. It is cold and is supposed to be used on eggs or boiled potatoes – as well as schnitzel. I like it on the schnitzel, but on the boiled potatoes? OMG – that is the best! The Spargel is fabulous with hollandaise as well – but those potatoes? I almost made myself sick on them, they are so good with the green sauce. Ed’s pig knuckle is delectable too. And massive. And the sauerkraut and mashed potatoes with it? A meal on their own and oh so good!