the Zinfandel days by a river

Perhaps not my first choice of European city for a mini-break. But you go where the cheap tickets take you.

The only thing I really knew about  Frankfurt am Main  was that it has a huge airport. Now I also know that it is the home of the euro, has a lot of skyscrapers for a European city and used to host the crowning ceremony of German emperors - including Charlemagne.

Now the city hosts some huge trade fairs but between the fairs, it seems rather surprised when confronted with non-Germans. Firmly rejecting foreign credit cards in many places, for example.

It was a coincidence that I ended up there for my tiny holiday, but it turned out to be the ideal city if you - like me - love both history and skyscrapers.

In Frankfurt you sit on the river bank among flocks of geese and people smoking the hookah. Every time you look up to the sky, there's an aircraft there. In Frankfurt, they have placed all the hotels so that the tourists have to go through the Red Light District - even if the sex clubs don't bother you, the drug addicts are a bit scary. The restaurant and bar staff speak English when they take your order but switch to German when they serve the food and bring the bill. There are a lot of handsome men.

The architecture is mixed. Looking at this picture I took, it actually looks Photoshopped. But it isn't. 15th century, meet the 20th century!

Other wonders of Frankfurt am Main:
* cheap wine
* subway trains that suddenly go above ground and magically turn into regular trams
* headstones in graveyards, often inscribed with a very childish sans-serif font and looking rather cheerful
* river barges, transporting not only cargo but also the captain's Mercedes and speedboat

How you should spend three days in Frankfurt:
* Buy bottles of wine in the supermarket.
* Wander around the city at random.
* When you get tired, sit on the river bank or in a park. Drink wine.
* When you've emptied a bottle of Zinfandel, write a note and include a German poem, put it in the bottle and throw it into the river Main. Watch it sail out towards the Rhine and beyond.
* Repeat.