We started the day by walking along the bank of the River Main, then into the Old Town precinct. This teddy greeted us outside the Teddy Paradise shop.
and another one was robotically blowing bubbles all day.
Around the corner a couple were emerging from the Town Hall as newlyweds and their friends were blowing bubbles over them instead of confetti.
We saw a picture of this area taken from the sky in 1944 and the bombing damage was horrific. By 1957 many of the historic buildings were rebuilt and these three are now famous.
In other parts of the town the old buildings stand next to the new ones, rather incongruously.
There are many carless and restricted areas where we felt very relaxed looking at the sights such as the Old Opera House.
There are a few pedicabs, this one ridden by a lady with grey hair and we saw a tour of the city done on Segways.
There were streets named after Goethe and Schiller and statues in the park. Goethe was undoubtedly the favourite son of Frankfurt.
After morning tea at Starbucks and a rest in our room, we went in search of the Goethe House.
Malcolm did the 7Euro tour of the house, which was very well restored after being bombed. Fortunately the contents had been stored away during the war and are able to be displayed still. This clock from 1745 told the time, date, moon phases and sun aspects. It even had a bear on a chain down the bottom that fell backwards when the spring needed rewinding.
This sculpture gave tribute to three of his close literary friends: Heinrich Heine, Clemens Brentano and can you guess?
The ubiquitous fellow Romantic, Victor Hugo.
We visited the Travel Centre at the Station last night and twice today to make reservations and check our plans up to our time in Serbia. After checking them several times we hope they are now complete.
There are poor areas of the town and quite a few people begging, many of them refugees, which is sad to see.
We definitely felt our day of sightseeing was worthwhile and we learned some history. An Irish band was playing in the square and we really enjoyed listening to them for half an hour.
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