Wight Weirdos

We got back a couple of days ago from a lightening trip to Frankfurt. It was borne out of Ryanair’s 1p flight deal, discovered thanks to the most excellent Martin Lewis and his splendid Moneysavingexpert.com website. When I say 1p, that was it. One solitary penny per person each way (inc. taxes). So 7 of us travelled from London Stansted to Frankfurt Hahn for 14p. Unfortunately it cost us £55 to get across the Solent….

This was my first visit to Germany, and comments on line had left me uninspired about the idea of visiting Frankfurt. Overall I was pleasantly surprised. We found a clean city, a very friendly welcome, and a huge Christmas market (which was the main reason for our visit).

So, some vague ramblings about some of my observations. I’ll talk about the airport in a separate post, including our top transport tips!

The transfer from the airport left us at an S-Bahn station, where we needed a little help with the ticket machine to get the best tickets, but we ended up with an all day ticket for 5 people for just €8.40 and a single trip ticket for just €2. The trains were fast, clean, on time and the information provision was pretty good.

We stayed in the Hotel Europa (booked via Hostelworld.com), which was carefully selected as it appeared to be the cheapest habitable hotel with the right configuration of rooms. For a triple and a twin room we paid around £80 for the night including breakfast. £16 per person is pretty good in my book. The rooms were small but clean and comfortable, the hotel was a bit noisy but we were prepared for that based on online reviews (like this and this), but the staff were fantastic; helpful, laid back and friendly. Breakfast was simple but good and plentiful. Really can’t quibble for the money. Oh, and it’s 3 minutes walk from the Hauptbahnhof (main station).

I won’t bore you with all the details of the trip, but a few things stood out:

This beautiful (cough!) sculpture really is as dominant as it looks in the picture. I guess the people of Frankfurt are proud of their place at the centre of the European banking system. Unfortunately this appears to be what happens when you let bankers commission art. The towers in the background are interesting too. I had presumed that Frankfurt’s “skyscrapers” would all be in a group together in the city centre, but they are actually quite spread out. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing…

When taking these we were on our way to Senckenberg, the natural history museum in Frankfurt. As with most museums it had its good and bad points, but what really stood out was the Cafe. In the UK we pay high prices for awful canteen food in many museums. The Bistro in here was not particularly cheap, but the food was good (mmmmm cakes) and you could even get a beer….I wonder if the Natural History Museum in London serves alcohol…. It also looked very attractive. So all you OK museum curators – it can be done!

Heading back for the Christmas market we forced certain members of our party to walk rather than catching the underground. I’m glad we did, because we meandered along some interesting residential streets. They aren’t going to get in the guide books, but I think this is an important part of visiting a new city. I also saw lots of evidence of simple cycle provision, like residential streets which were one way for cars and two way for bikes. This was the norm it appeared, as it is in the Netherlands. Take note UK traffic planners!!!