I had read and heard mixed reviews about Athens, with the main complaints being that it's dingy and crowded and that there isn't much to the city after you've seen the Acropolis. However, other travelers rave about the city and list it as a favourite destination in Europe. For me, it looked like a good budget traveler's trip with warm weather and a chance to see one of Europe's most famous landmarks. So I figured I'd go and decide for myself whether the city is a great travel destination.
It turns out late October is a great time to go because the weather is milder than during its blazing summers but still warm enough to provide a laidback Mediterranean atmosphere. Temperatures during the three days were around 26°C and moderately humid, which was a nice change from Paris (6°C and raining when I left).
Normally I would have booked Athens for a weekend stay, but for some reason airfares on Sunday evening were very expensive, such that it was much cheaper to stay a third day and fly out on a Monday. Worried that I'd be bored with three days in the city, I planned two excursions, which would also give me a chance to see other parts of Greece.
Day 1
I started the first day by heading straight for the most famous site in the city, the Acropolis of Athens. The site contains several ancient buildings, including the iconic Parthenon as well as the Propylaea and the Erechtheum. The bonus is that the Acropolis is the highest point in the city, so you can get a great view of Athens in every direction. From this vantage point, the city sprawls towards every mountain in the area (and is even starting to develop onto some mountains) and has a bright white appearance. The white appearance belies the city seen up close: a lot of buildings are old and rundown, and there is a lot of graffiti in non-tourist areas, so some parts of Athens do have a slummy look.
At the Acropolis of Athens, a picture of me behind the Parthenon. The front of the Parthenon was covered with scaffolding.
My ticket to the Acropolis also gave me access to several other sites in the area that I visited, including the Theater of Dionysus (in which you can sit), the Ancient Agora, and the Temple of Olympian Zeus (although the Acropolis Museum requires another ticket).
The Museum of the Ancient Agora is housed in a beautifully rebuilt version of the Stoa of Attalos. The museum is small and most of its exhibits are pottery or weathered marble statues, but one of the more interesting items is a very large bronze Spartan shield from 425 B.C.
Most of the structures in the Ancient Agora of Athens are heavily weathered ruins, but the Temple of Hepaestus is one of the best preserved temples from Ancient Greece. It was even used as a Greek Orthodox church until 1834.
The Museum of the Acropolis contains artifacts found on and around the Acropolis from the Greek Bronze Age, Roman Greece and Byzantine Greece. Some of the artifacts still have remnants of their original colour dyes, and three of the museum's best displays include accompanying replicas that show what the statues would have looked like in their original time. Some of the Parthenon sculptures are plaster cast replicas, as the originals are in the British Museum.
The Temple of Olympian Zeus was the largest temple during the Roman era of Greece, but it was pillaged by barbarians in the third century A.D. and then heavily quarried for other building projects after the fall of the Roman Empire. Between the remaining columns, in the distant background, is the Acropolis of Athens.
While I find Ancient Greek (and Roman) history interesting, I felt like I needed a break from the plethora of ancient ruins, so I headed east towards more modern sites, including the National Gardens and the Panathenaic Stadium. It's odd that in my three days in Athens, I did not get around to climbing either Mount Lycabetus or Filopappou Hill, but this would have required too much time and energy just to see the city from a slightly different vantage point than the Acropolis.
The Panathenaic Stadium was originally built in the 5th century B.C., but was refurbished in the 1890's in order to host the first modern Olympic games. The stadium is much longer than the photo implies, as I took this from the open end.
The National Garden contains a mix of tropical and temperate trees as well as a few ponds and ruins. Pictured is the sundial at one of the garden's main entrances.
Despite my interest in Ancient Greek history, I'm not an archaeology buff, so after seeing several ancient ruins and visiting two museums with ancient artifacts, I knew that I'd be bored visiting the National Archaeology Museum. There is only so much you can see regarding one era in one country's history before everything gets repetitive. In lieu of this, I visited the Benaki Museum, which offered a wider variety of artifacts from the entire spectrum of Greek history.
The main building of the Benaki Museum contains artifacts spanning Greece's entire history. Pictured are various Greek Orthodox artifacts from the 16th and 17th centuries.
I had enough time to head over to Piraeus (a port west of Athens) to see the football match that evening, and along the way I came across a beautiful stretch of modern buildings that retained the classic Greco-Roman architecture (and were free of any graffiti).
Some of the modern buildings in Greece also utilize classic Greco-Roman architecture. Pictured is the front of the modern Academy of Athens. This building is part of a trilogy of similarly styled buildings lining Panepistimiou Street, along with the University of Athens and the National Library.
The football match was between Olympiacos and AEK Athens (so a city derby, although the rivalry between Olympiacos and Panathinaikos is more intense). The first thing I noticed entering the stadium was that the security staff made very little effort to search anyone for banned items (in fact, it felt like they were only pretending to search me), which meant a lot of fans were able to bring pyrotechnics (i.e. flares) to the game. This made for a great atmosphere, as along with the louder than normal chanting of the crowd, there was also a show of smoke and lights that accompanied the opening announcements and each of the home team's goals. As an example of this, here is a video of the first goal (off a corner kick):
Olympiacos is the perennial top team in Greece, so they constantly pressured AEK and won the match 4-0.
Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium at the beginning of the match between Olympiacos FC (the home team) and AEK Athens FC. The crowd also lit as many flares after the first three goals scored by Olympiacos, but very few after the fourth (the supporters either ran out of pyrotechnics or they didn't think the fourth goal was of much importance as the game was decided after the third goal).
Day 2
I spent the morning of the second day visiting the other sites accessible with my Acropolis ticket, which included Hadrian's Library and the Kerameikos (the neighbourhood where the potter's lived). Both sites were a lot like the Ancient Agora, filled with a lot of heavily weathered ruins. I'm not sure if it happens every morning or if it was due to the weather or time of year, but both sites also had more than a few tortoises crawling about. They were moderately sized (each about 10-12 inches from head to tail) but had no fear of humans, as they crawled casually around landmarks and across walkways. I was impressed by the determination of these tortoises to get to wherever they were going, because they completely ignored the annoying tourists that were poking at them or pulling at their legs, and just kept crawling at the same pace.
Two of the few structures still standing in Hadrian's Library. The main entrance on the other side also had a wall and another set of columns that were still in good shape.
My first excursion was to Aegina, a Greek island about 25km west of Athens. The ferry from Piraeus dropped me off on the west side of the island, at the port, and by the time I got there it was early afternoon. Consequently, after visiting the Apollo temple and its museum, I realized that I wouldn't have enough time to visit the marina on the east side of the island nor visit the island's other two landmarks (the Temple of Aphaea and Saint Nectarios church), so I just relaxed and checked out the small beaches and churches in the port area. The island reminded me a lot of Martha's Vineyard in the Boston area, a touristy island but still a laidback getaway from the big city.
A cove on the west side of Aegina. The beach here was pebbly, but there were smaller beaches south of here that were sandy (although covered with a lot of seaweed).
Ancient Aegina was home to a thriving civilization, responsible for building the Temple of Apollo in the 6th century B.C. The one column still standing can be seen from sea as your ferry arrives in the port.
The port of Aegina is filled with various fishing boats and small pleasurecraft (apparently the marina has the nicer yachts). There is also a wide variety of cafes, restaurants and souvenir shops spanning the area.
Day 3
When I planned this trip, I considered takng the day trip to Delphi to see the Oracle (or what remained of it), but I thought it was too much time to spend an entire day (four hours one-way by road) to see one ancient site, especially when I was able to walk to a countless number of other ruins in Athens. However, I still wanted to see an ancient city outside of Athens, and visiting Corinth only took half a day. The city also has some personal appeal, as my Biblical namesake wrote two famous letters to the Corinthians. The added bonus was that the trip to the ancient city passed by a more modern site, the Corinth Canal.
Completed in 1893, the Corinth Canal connects the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea with the Corinth Gulf in the Ionian Sea.
A street in the agora of Ancient Corinth. In the background, there is an acropolis at the top of the mountain (the outline of a temple can be seen in the distance), but apparently there are no roads going to the top.
In the agora of Ancient Corinth, the remains of the Temple of Apollo.
The site of Ancient Corinth was also accompanied by a museum, which contained mostly pottery and weathered marble statues from the area.
After returning from Corinth, I had enough time before my flight to look around the Plaka area. This is basically the tourist area of Athens, containing souvenir shops, low- and high-end restaurants, and vendors selling local goods. This part of Athens was much cleaner than the rest of the city, although also more crowded with tourist traffic.
The Plaka district of Athens contains mostly shops and restaurants as well as two churches, including the Church of Panaghia Kapnikarea.
So that was Athens (and Aegina and Corinth) in three days. I was left wondering if I could have had a better trip going to Delphi instead of Corinth and to Hydros (or another island) instead of Aegina, but I think the excursions worked well considering the short duration of my stay in Greece. If I had booked more days, then I would have looked into more physical activities on the Greek islands (scuba diving perhaps?).
As for Athens itself, I think it's better than what the negative reviewers say. The key is to book excursions to other cities/islands to round out the experience. Unless you have a special interest in archaeology, you really only need a day (or at most two days) to see Athens. Granted, the graffiti in non-tourist areas is an eyesore and a shame for a city with such a proud history, but traveling is meant to be a learning experience and the slummy conditions were just as revealing of the state of modern Greece as any whitewashed landmark could have been.
I had two reasons for visiting Zurich. First, I had only spent one day looking around Basel during my last trip to Switzerland (on account of the other day being spent at BaselWorld), so I felt like visiting another city to see what the country had to offer, even if only on an abbreviated visit. Ideally, I'll visit Switzerland again next year to hike in the Alps, but I haven't planned that far ahead and there are no guarantees I can put such a trip together given all of my other travel priorities. Second, I had already visited four of Europe's five microstates (Vatican City, Monaco, San Marino and Andorra), so I owed it to Liechtenstein to pay them a visit, and Zurich was the easiest major city from which to access the country. On account of football scheduling, I spent my first day in Liechtenstein.
Vaduz
It turns out that Vaduz gets a moderate level of tourist traffic in October, although the majority of visitors travel to Liechtenstein using a chartered tour bus. I found that it was easy enough, and much cheaper, to travel from Zurich to Vaduz by train and public bus. Basically, you take a train from Zurich to Sargans, a small Swiss town on the border with Liechtenstein, and then take a public transit bus from Sargans to Vaduz. The train ride had some decent views of the Alps, but I'm assuming it isn't as scenic as the Glacier Express or the Bernina Express.
The advantage to this travel approach is that the public bus route loops through other Liechtenstein towns in between Sargans and Vaduz, including a small town called Balzers. This town is built around Gutenberg Castle, which is probably Liechtenstein's most famous landmark outside of Vaduz, and the bus route circled around the entire castle, giving riders a decent view of the structure from every angle.
Gutenberg Castle in Balzers, Liechtenstein. I doubted that there was public access to the castle interior, so I stayed on the bus as it looped through Balzers. I could not verify the name of the church on the right, but I think it's just Katholisch Pfarramt.
Vaduz is a very small city and most of the sites to visit are located on a pedestrian-only street which was hosting a small outdoor market on the day that I visited. I got the sense that the city caters heavily to tourists, not to the same extent as Andorra or San Marino, but still enough to give that particular street a very touristy vibe. The city also had a good view of the Alps in every direction, although there were no notable mountains in the area.
The Liechtenstein Center provides tourist information and sells various souvenirs, but you can also pay three Swiss francs to get your passport stamped. With this, I now have passport stamps from four of the European microstates (the fifth, Vatican City, does not issue a stamp).
The interior of St. Florin's Cathedral. A lot of tourists took photos of the exterior, but there was no signage at the door and no traffic entering/leaving the building, so very few tourists attempted to even enter the cathedral.
The Liechtensteinisches Landesmuseum (National Museum) contains various artifacts and displays on the history of Liechtenstein. Pictured are traditional women's dresses.
My ticket to the Landesmuseum also gave me access to the National Treasury, which included some royal artifacts (a crown, a few medals and some ceremonial swords), a large collection of jeweled eggs (I suspect someone in the royal family was an avid collector), and two separate trophies presented by NASA to Liechtenstein containing fragments of the moon. Unfortunately, the Treasury did not allow photography, although it was too dark to take good photos anyway.
The Kunstmuseum Lichtenstein is small, but contains a variety of art from different styles. The museum even has two works by Pablo Picasso, including the painting pictured above: Woman in an Armchair.
After the three museums, I took the short but very steep walk up to Vaduz Castle. The castle is the official residence of the Prince of Lichtenstein, so there is no public access, but I figured I'd take a closer look anyway. I consider reaching the castle to be a sightseer's badge of honour like the third tower in San Marino: few people make it out to countries like this and only a small percentage of those few bother to climb up to these landmarks, so reaching the third tower of San Marino and Vaduz Castle makes for a more unique travel experience.
A photo of me at the back of Vaduz Castle (the side facing towards the mountain). The sun was shining bright that day, and the group of tourists behind me struggled as much as I did to take a photo that wasn't either filled with glare or heavily darkened by the camera reacting to the sunlight.
I was also able to stay late in Vaduz and attend a local football match. FC Vaduz happens to play in the top division of the Swiss Super League and they were playing FC Thun that day. Both teams are in the bottom half of the standings so it wasn't exactly a marquee matchup, but how many football tourists can say they've seen a Swiss Super League match in Liechtenstein? (Actually, there might be more than a few. The attendance at this match alone was 2,757 and I'd estimate that about a quarter of the crowd were tourists.)
Rheinpark Stadion during the match between FC Vaduz and FC Thun. On the far left, you can see Vaduz Castle on the side of the mountain. The visiting team supporters are on the opposite side of the stadium.
It turns out that Liechtenstein football fans are the quiet type. There was a handful of home team supporters that brought banners and a drum, but they were silent throughout the match. For the visiting team, there were about 80 supporters for FC Thun who were cheering off and on for most of the match, so the stadium had a bit of noise but not a lot. Even the clapping seemed somewhat muted when FC Vaduz scored. Anyways, the game ended in a 1-1 draw and was ok quality, but I was still left wondering how these teams could survive against the bigger market Swiss teams like FC Basel or Grasshoppers.
Zürich
The tourist information desk at the airport provided an interesting tourist map which included a walking route that would take you to most of the major landmarks of the city. I followed this route and visited St. Peter's Kirche (which had a plain interior), Fraumunster Kirche (which did not allow tourists inside) and then the Grossmunster Kirche. The Grossmunster Kirche also had a plain interior, but you could also climb up one of its two towers and get a great view of the old town of Zürich.
A view of Zürich Altstadt (old town) from the Grossmunster, facing northwest. The tower on the left is St. Peter's Kirche and the building on top of the Limmat river (just right of the carousel) is the Rathaus (town hall). You can't see them from this distance, but the pink building across from the Rathaus has one section called Hotel zum Storchen which coincidentally had several swans swimming around its dock.
A view of Zürich Altstadt from the Grossmunster, facing southwest. The tower on the right is the Fraumunster and the north end of Lake Zürich can be seen on the far left.
From the Altstadt district, I walked south towards Lake Zürich. I passed by the opera house on the east coast of the lake, which was busy with swans and ducks getting well fed by the tourists, and then walked along the quai to the west coast. This side had much less tourist traffic so I felt like I was getting a more local feel of the city. I spent enough time there to stroll through the Zürich Arboretum as well as check out the very small aviary within the park. The aviary had an interesting variety of birds, most of which seemed calm around the onlookers. The Seebad Enge waterfront bar is only open in the summer, so it was closed when I came across it.
A shot of the Zürich Arboretum.
I then walked back to the east side of the lake and a bit north of there found the Zürich Kunsthaus. I was expecting a small museum and only planned a short visit, but was incredibly surprised by both the size of the museum and the high quality of artworks it contained. This was a moderately sized museum with art from every major style (although less Renaissance and more post-Impressionist art). There were famous works by Rodin, Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, and too many other artists to remember. What also made this unique from other art museums that I have visited is that they even had a few famous works by modern artists such as Andy Warhol (ugh), Salvador Dali and Wassily Kandinsky.
At the Zürich Kunsthaus, Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Pipe, by Vincent Van Gogh.
A modern art work at the Zürich Kunsthaus, Blue-Red by Wassily Kandinsky.
A variety of works by Henri Matisse. The sculpture is Seated Nude (Olga) and the first two paintings from the left are Branch of Ivy and Barbizon.
I spent so much time in the art museum that I didn't feel like I could make it to the FC Zürich football match in time, which is just as well since I didn't buy advance tickets and I was getting burnt out seeing so many matches in a short period (the Frankfurt trip was the previous weekend). I tried to visit the Sweizerisches Nationalmuseum, but it was after 5pm and already closed (doh!), so I just spent the rest of the day visiting a miniature version of Oktoberfest that was setup inside the Hauptbanhof train station. The kalb bratwurst was excellent and fortunately the tacky music they were playing was limited to a small party tent that dampened the sound.
The miniature version of Oktoberfest in the Zürich Hauptbanhof.
So that was Zürich and Vaduz in a weekend. Vaduz was a pleasant city nestled in the Alps with enough sites to make for a good day trip. Zürich did not have a lot of famous landmarks, but the old town can be appreciated in its entirety rather than for its parts. The Kunsthaus was also a pleasant surprise that really raised the bar for what I should expect from an art museum in Europe.
I have another trip planned for this weekend so I'll post details in another week or so.
I've tried to pace my football recaps to five matches per post. So while I attended three matches in the late spring, it took a bit longer than expected to see another two. This was primarily due to the awkward scheduling of games in the summer. However, the Frankfurt trip got me up to five, so here is a short belated post...
I've been experimenting with uploading videos to YouTube. I've embedded one of those videos, which includes an excerpt of the Rapid Wien match that I attended back in April (now this blog has video!):
After five matches, the table below has my ratings for the quality of play, atmosphere, stadium and safety of each match.
Home Team
Stadium
Quality of Football
Atmosphere
Stadium (View, Amenities)
Safety
Overall
SK Rapid Wien
Ernst Happel Stadium
6
7
6
8
7
Sparta Praha
Generali Arena
6
5
7
8
6
ACF Fiorentina
Stadio Artemio Franchi
7
8
3
6
5
FSV Mainz 05
Coface Arena
10
7
8
10
9
Eintracht Frankfurt
Commerzbank Arena
7
7
8
8
7
Some explanatory notes:
Sparta Praha has a nice stadium with loud fans, but there were too few of them at the match I attended to make for a good atmosphere. I think a marquee matchup against another top team would have likely led to a bigger crowd and better vibe.
I penalized Fiorentina's stadium rating for both the poor view as well as the badly outdated ticketing systems that seriously delayed entry into the stadium. Any ticketholder who is not a club member has to have their identity checked in a computer system (I'm assuming this is for security purposes) and this system took several minutes to clear each person, so it took over an hour to get into the match. Europeans generally have more patience when it comes to slow moving lines, but I could sense a lot of frustrated fans waiting in that ticket office lineup.
The FSV Mainz match had them playing host to Bayern Munich, and the visitors put on a show. Highest quality football I have ever seen live.
A shot of the match between Eintracht Frankfurt and Hertha Berlin. This is a different view from the one I posted earlier.
The supporter scarves for SK Rapid Wien, AC Sparta Praha, ACF Fiorentina, FSV Mainz 05 and Eintracht Frankfurt.
I'm falling behind on my posts, but I'll write something soon regarding a trip to Switzerland.
It had been a while since I attended any football matches and I was determined to see my favourite club, Bayern Munich, at least once during my stay in Europe. The challenge is that all of their games at home and away are sold out as soon as tickets are available and those tickets usually sell at a steep premium on the resale market. Fortunately, I was able to find affordable tickets for Bayern's Bundesliga match in Mainz, although I'd be sitting in the home (Mainz) supporters section so I'd have to refrain from showing any open support for Bayern. I found it odd that these tickets were the cheapest available because Mainz is only a 35 minute train ride from Frankfurt and it just so happened that Frankfurt was hosting their annual international auto show at the same time!
This was a great opportunity to see two events on one trip. Now while an event-focused trip also meant I'd have less time for sightseeing, Frankfurt and Mainz are modern cities and don't have a lot of historical sites to see anyway (relative to other European cities), so the major sites could still fit into a compact itinerary.
Mainz
Mainz is small enough that all of the main sites are within a short walking distance of one another. From the train station, I walked southeast towards St. Stephan's Church, stopping at Schillerplatz along the way.
The Fastnachtsbrunnen Fountain. This fountain is part of a small town square (Schillerplatz) which is surrounded by well-maintained historical buildings and which includes a small garden and a statue depicting a larger version of one of the many jesters that comprise this fountain.
The interior of Stephanskirche (St. Stephan's Church) has a unique dark blue hue from the stained glass windows. There is also a nice looking pipe organ to the right of the main altar (somewhat visible in the photo).
I then walked to the Citadel, but I didn't explore the whole area so I either missed something or the travel websites overrated this site because I didn't see much there besides a small museum and an old stone tower.
Up to that point, the city seemed sparsely attended, with a handful of tourists at each site and even fewer locals going about their weekend business (which included a group of teens practicing free running at both Stephanskirche and the Citadel). However, when I reached the old town of Mainz, the streets were much more crowded. This was due to both the football match bringing thousands of Bayern Munich fans into the small city and the fact that there was an open market being held that day (I'm not sure how often it's held but it's one of the top rated items to see). The market consisted primarily of vendors selling fresh fruits, vegetables and meats, and it seemed it was geared more towards the locals than to tourists.
The exterior of the side of the Mainzer Dom (Mainz Cathedral) with the Wochenmarkt taking place below. The interior of the cathedral is spacious but relatively plain.
A shot of the Eisenturm (Iron Tower). Dating back to the 13th century, this is one of three towers that are remnants of the original city walls of Mainz. The better known Holzturm appeared to be under renovation as it was completely covered when I visited, but I think the Eisenturm looks better anyway.
Mainz is the birthplace of Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press, so of course there was a Gutenberg Museum dedicated to the history of printing. I only had time to check two rooms before heading to the football match.
The only site not within walking distance was Coface Arena, home of FSV Mainz 05, but fortunately there were free shuttle buses taking everyone to the stadium. It also appeared that a large proportion of Mainz fans sold their tickets (including one to me) as the stadium of 34,000 was filled with about 35% Bayern fans, and the visiting fans sitting in the home sections were dressed in their Bayern jerseys without any objection from security or the Mainz fans.
A shot of Coface Arena during the match between FSV Mainz 05 and Bayern Munich. Both Mainz and Bayern have red as their primary colour, so it's difficult to make out the composition of fan support, but it seemed like it was roughly two-thirds Mainz and one-third Bayern.
As for the game itself, Bayern Munich controlled the match from start to finish and won 3-0. Their striker Robert Lewandowski was in good form and scored two of the goals (he also scored five goals in nine minutes against Wolfsburg earlier in the week and then scored three more against Olympiacos in a Champions League game the following week). The fun part about watching Bayern in person is that with their high level of ball possession, you got an opportunity to see all of their players working with the ball frequently and for longer periods of time, so you felt like you knew each player's skillset a lot better by the end of the match. As for the Mainz side, this was the first time I sat in the supporters' section of an underdog team, and I found that the fans were still happy with the work effort and defensive discipline that Mainz displayed (it was 0-0 at halftime). The atmosphere wasn't as loud as the stadiums of larger cities, but the fans were definitely friendlier (I did not detect any tension despite the heavy intermingling of opposing teams' fans).
After the game, I had enough time to check out a few more sites in Mainz. I managed to see the Holzturm (but it was covered), the Augustinerkirche, and the Weinhaus Zum Spiegel before taking the train back to Frankfurt.
The Weinhaus Zum Spiegel. This building was not on my to-do list, but I noticed that a lot of postcards on sale at souvenir shops included pictures of this building so I figured I'd take a look. The interior contains a fancy restaurant. In the background on the right is the other side (opposite from the Wochenmarkt) of the Mainzer Dom.
Frankfurt
While Frankfurt is larger than Mainz, most of its sites are still very walkable and I only needed to take the S-bahn for getting to the auto show, the football stadium and to/from the airport. With a busy day planned, I started by heading straight for the old town but came across the Euro Tower along the way.
It was fitting that the first landmark that I come across was the Euro Tower, former headquarters of the European Central Bank (they still use it as a secondary office building). Frankfurt is a modern city and a financial centre, and the presence of shiny skyscrapers was a sharp contrast to the historical cities that I've seen throughout most of Europe. It reminded me a bit of Toronto. The building just behind is the taller Main Tower, home to various investment banks.
Frankfurt has one of my favourite town squares in Europe, the Römer Square. This is a shot facing west, with the Römer (Town Hall) in the centre of the three buildings. There was also an art display in the square, Grenzen überwinden (Overcoming Boundaries) by Ottmar Hörl, which consisted of several little green statues attached to a network of narrow wooden planks. The art is a celebration of 25 years of German unification.
A shot of Römer Square facing east. The medieval style buildings are referred to as Römerberg and unlike Rouen, the wood paneling on the building exteriors is real. The Old St. Nicholas Church is on the far right.
The main church in the city is the Frankfurt Cathedral, also known as Saint Bartholomew's Cathedral. The interior was smaller than I expected and relatively modest.
I had enough time to visit one museum in the city and the Goethehaus was nearby. This actually felt like two museums combined into one, as it contained a reconstruction of the family house of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe as well as an art museum of classical paintings completed in the vicinity during Goethe's time.
The art museum adjacent to the Goethehaus contained several luminist works, including the one pictured: Grabmal der Plautier und Ponte Lucano, by Jacob Philipp Hackert.
I had about two and a half hours to see the Frankfurt International Motor Show. I've never been to the Detroit Auto Show, which I assume focuses on the big three American automakers (GM, Ford, Chrysler), but the Frankfurt show is much different in that it focuses on the German automakers. This includes the BMW Group (with Mini and Rolls Royce), the VW Group (with Audi, Porsche, Lamborghini and Bugatti), and Mercedes-Benz. In other words, the Frankfurt show is exponentially more exciting than Detroit, although each show has a smaller presence of the other brands. Ford was in Frankfurt, but Toyota and GM were not.
Anyways, it turns out you'd need a few days to see everything at the show, for two reasons. First, each manufacturer had a massive exhibit, which included every model and several variants of each model. Those cars were open to the public, so you could pop the hood, sit inside or simply put your grubby fingerprints all over the body before one of many cleaners would pass by and re-shine the exterior. There were also a handful of concept cars on display, but they were cordoned off and for display only. Second, the show was brutally crowded in the exhibits of the more popular brands, so getting around took much longer than usual. The crowds were likely due to it being a weekend and the last day of the event. I had enough time to take a cursory look at the Audi, VW, Porsche, Mercedes and BMW exhibits.
The Audi E-Tron Quattro Concept. This is an electric-powered SUV which is small enough to look more like a car/SUV mix (they call it a sport SUV). The three electric motors can produce 429 horsepower (496 hp using a short-term boost setting). The fully charged range is about 310 miles with conservative driving. Audi is scheduling market production for 2018.
Mercedes-Benz is also focusing on the electric market. Their IAA Concept has a gas/electric hybrid system with 279 horsepower. However, the real innovation with this car is that it has a special aerodynamic mode that is activated when the car reaches 50 mph, at which point the tail, rims and various louvers and wings will readjust to optimize air flow through and around the car. The design of the car looked a little too "concept"ual for me.
I did not have the chance to see any of BMW's concept cars, but I still managed to look at the upcoming editions of their current models. The Z4 would be a fun ride.
To end my trip, I had enough time to check out a football match between Eintracht Frankfurt and Hertha Berlin in the Commerzbank Arena. While the stadium was only filled to about 90% capacity, the crowd was still loud and provided a great atmosphere. The one unique aspect of this match was that it was the first time I had ever seen an evenly matched football game. (The Rapid Wien match in Vienna was also close but Wien was clearly the better team.) While Frankfurt looked better in the first half, Berlin had the advantage in the second, and the game ended in a 1-1 draw.
Commerzbank Arena during a match between Eintracht Frankfurt and Hertha Berlin.
So that was Frankfurt and Mainz over a weekend. I got lucky with the timing of a Bayern Munich match and the Frankfurt auto show (and the Eintracht-Hertha match) occurring on the same weekend, which made for a busy and engaging trip. My next trip will be just a bit further south.
