Frankfurt trip planner

Wander through this amazing city, admiring the incredible modern buildings, set alongside timbered houses and historic sites.

From the very beginning, the Städel Museum has continually developed its collection both quantitatively and qualitatively. It contains about 3000 paintings, hundreds of sculptures and thousands of photographs including a unique collection of about 10,000 drawings and engravings. In the area of contemporary art, it was expanded by over 1,000 works within just a few years.

The museum also deals with the fields of art research, education, conservation and restoration over the past ten years has expanded the museum experience into the digital realm.

The businessman and banker Johann Friedeich Städel, born in 1728, bought art on his many business trips and bequeathed the valuable collection to the city. It included paintings, sculptures, drawings and engravings mainly from the Baroque period. His aim was to make all this accessible to the people of Frankfurt and the rest of the world.

The museum and the Städel Garden have prominent spaces that are filled with artificial or and natural lighting and together contain about 3,000 paintings, hundreds of sculptures and thousands of photographs. Visitors can see a unique collection of about 10,000 drawings and engravings in this unique environmental technique and are encouraged to discover the outstanding works of modern and contemporary art, visit the library and attend workshops and lectures.

Secret: Free App and audio guides for special exhibitions

The Zoo spreads over 11 acres of greenery that surrounds the metropolis. It is within walking distance of a pedestrian mall, Zeil Street, Bernard Grzimek 1. The zoo, originaly a zoological garden,  was founded in 1858 and it developed into a zoo which hardly survived the Great Famine of 1916 during WWI. Then during WWII, in 1943, the massive bombings of Frankfurt caused casualties in the zoo and destroyed the animal exhiibits with a tremendous loss of many of the animals. Fortunately, an order to kill the surviving animals was not fulfilled and most were sent to other zoos for safety. They are the ones who formed the nucleus for the regeneration of animals in the zoo. The efforts to rehabilitate the zoo witout a budget was nearly impossible. So the directors initiated creative ways to raise money including putting on shows, circuses, films, plays and events whereby donations were made to rebuild the zoo. They were successful in repopulating the various species of animals to what it was before the disaster “and then some”.  In 1958 the zoo spread over an area of 3 dunams.

In 1975 the zoo was relocated to its current location it is open 365 days of the year and it is totally accessible! The zoo, today, includes more than thousands of well-cared-for animals and more than 400 different species. Up until the Corona pandemic the zoo enjoyed about 800,00 visitors a year.  So get ready to spend about 2.5-3 hours to see it all!

Goethe absorbed culture and education from his parents and teachers, and was proficient in Latin, Ancient Greek and Yiddish, skilled in dancing, fencing and riding, literature and poetry, painting, sculpture and engraving. To top it off, as an adult, Goethe studied law.

Goethe's wonderful and rare attributes and knowledge in the sciences, philosophy, poetry and literature manifested itself in a wide variety of works, the best known of them all is the play "Faust", considered one of the most important and cited works in German literature and perhaps in the world.

The Goethe three-story house with the stylish attic which included vents in four different sizes was typical of the style of 18th century houses that were built for the Frankfurt bourgeois. Goethe spent his youth here with his parents and sister and even wrote some of his works here including the beginning of Faust.

In close proximity to the Goethe’s house, the recently opened Deutsches Romantik Museum (The German Romanticism Museum) is dedicated to the Romantic era and is the first museum in the world to specialize in Romantic art and literature. The museum also has multimedia exhibitions besides paintings, manuscripts and other objects of that period as well as a permanent exhibition of young Goethe’s life (from 1749-1775). 

The MMK1 has more than 5000 works of art, a wide range in the field of modern art by international and national artists, dating from the 1960s to the present. Besides conceptual art or decorative art, the museum also exhibits photography, seeing this medium as important as paintings, drawings, etchings, etc. which are traditionally displayed in art museums.

Exposing art by emerging young artists is as important to the curators as showing the works by well-known artists. Over the years, the museum has acquired collections, the most important was the one purchased from Karl Ströher, an industrialist. This is considered the core of the museum - a collection of mostly American pop and minimalist art. Then the MMK together with the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein and the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen acquired a collection which focuses on works of American Post-Minimalism and conceptual art. The acquisition was made from Rolf Ricke, a gallery owner and collector and is considered one of the most extensive and valuable acquisition made by the museum. 

Can we be “a name dropper” and let you know that you can view paintings by some of the most famous and major artists in the world, such as  Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and many more! A computerized catalogue can be viewed on the museum's website.

Secret: Because the building is a triangular shape it is called “A Piece of Cake”.

In 822, Charles the Great's son, Louis "the Pious", king of the Franks, built a chapel here to continue with his ideas and plans for the enforcement of further reforms he carried out in churches and monasteries. The Merovingian Church, which preceded the cathedral, was declared an imperial church and from 1356 it was here that the kings of the Holy Roman Empire were elected. After the construction of the cathedral which was completed around 1500, from 1562 to 1792, it became the place for the kings and later on emperors to be crowned, so make sure not to miss the Elector’s Chapel (Wahlkapelle)on the south side of the room.

The impressive bell tower, decorated in the Gothic style, rises to a height of 95 meters and the large bell weighs almost 12 tons. Visitors may climb the 324 steps to the observation platform which offers a terrific view of Romerberg, the square which is the heart of the old town aka the medieval Alstadt and a very popular meeting place for the locals and tourists.  No wonder! It is the situated in front of the Frankfurt City administration buildings and popular place for trade fairs and events.

Do you know why it is called Saint Bartholomew’s Cathedral (German: Kaiserdom Sankt Bartholomäus)? It is due to the fact that the sacred relic, believed to be a piece of the head of the Saint is hidden behind its walls in the Reliquarium aka as the Relique room. (The room is usually open on major holidays.)

What an impression we get when we see the interior of the church with its Gothic frescos, large stained-glass windows, high arches, the Altar of Mary sleeping, sculptures, a stone pilaster relief of the Crucifixion of Christ and a magnificent organ. In 1867, a dreadful fire burned down the major part of the cathedral; fortunately, it was accurately restored according to the architectural plans of 1415.

Along with some 1000 buildings bombed during World War II, the Cathedral was severely damaged The restoration of the church took many years and only reopened in the 1950s. At the entrance to the cathedral there is a photo exhibition displaying photographs of the destroyed place after the massive bombings. The cathedral, which also previously bore the title of "Imperial Cathedral" (Keiserdom), has never been a bishop’s throne, so in the traditional sense it is not a cathedral. You can find its story and its treasure from the 8th century AD to the present day in the museum.

Note: Who was St. Bartholomew? According to the New Testament he was one of the twelve Apostles and is patron saint to many crafts people, including painters, glove makers, leather workers, bookbinders, and a few others.  His efforts to spread Christianity to Armenia is what has made him the patron saint of that country and Saint Bartholomew was a symbol for national unity in Germany.

It was built in the French style and over the years the neoclassical villa was finally bought by the city of Frankfurt with the intention of turning it into a museum. In 1987, Richard Meier, an American architect, was hired to expand the building while preserving the original historical structure in order to create a museum.

In 2009 the building underwent extensive renovations and now includes many types of applied arts. The original part of the villa, with its nine rooms, displays applied art from the time that it was used as a residence; and this includes the furniture, carpets, porcelain details, crystal, chandeliers and more.

As well, the museum is a resource center in the field of applied arts with an emphasis on design and fashion. It also serves as a platform for a very wide range of applied arts ranging from decorative arts of objects, household items, furniture, wallpaper and carpets to electrical, electronic and mechanical products designed by artisans.

The place is humming with activities - Exhibitions, alternating and permanent as well as workshops, tours, lectures and more - just check on their calendar of events to stay updated.

“House of Film”: Under one roof gives you a peek into the world of magic creativity, though the technical aspects as well as the artistic and creative forces up to the reality.
The main interest of the passionate team of film aficionado staff is the preserving the heritage of the cinema in the diverse industry.
The institute combines the research in the field of film and pursues in diverse directions to include archives, collections, events and festival, digitalizing and education and of course the technical means that make it possible to create in the film industry and make it accessible to the general public.
If you have time for another stop or two we suggest you take a few steps from the Film Museum to the "World Cultures Museum" (Museum der Weltkulturen) which is an ethnological museum housed in three buildings. As well there is the "Museum of Communication Frankfurt" (The Museum für Kommunikation Frankfurt) which has interesting exhibits about the way humans communicated from the earliest times to our current technological era. If you are travelling with children they do have a hands-on Children’s Workshop.
Museumsufer (Museum Embankment) is the name of the area where there are museums close in proximity located on both sides of the Main River. The museum in the center is the Stadel and over the years other museums were relocated to this area, so that now there are about 40 museums that are part of the Museumsufer!

In 1870, the garden was formed after the greenhouses were moved from the Biebrich Castle and the official opening was in 1871 in the presence of Kaiser Wilhelm I.  After WWI the gardens were expanded and during WWII the landscaping was damaged and the land was used to grow potatoes and cabbage instead of flowers.

During the war, the gardens were turned into a recreation center for U.S. soldiers and in the process rebuilt and repaired much of the damage to help for a speedy recovery.

In 1953, the public returned to visit the garden again and by 1963 the annual number stood at over one million visitors.

In 1993 the garden covered about 200 dunam and had about  13,000 plant species displayed in various pavilions showing off an impressive collection of tropical plants, An iron and glass greenhouse from 1867 contains a wide variety of palm trees (hence the name of the gardens) is one of the largest in the Europe. One can also encounter birds, butterflies, caterpillars and fish nearbyl.

Today the garden is part of the regional network "BioFrankfurt" which incorporates 13 research institutes for the conservation of nature, shares information and knowledge and the development and protection of flora and fauna. The garden is part of the global seed exchange program, aimed at preserving existing and extinct species

The park, which once served as a place of entertainment for the city's upper middle class, the bohemian aristocracy, it is now open to the public at Siesmayerstrasse 63 Frankfut am Main

Skeletons and fossils of dinosaurs and other giants are just some of the paleontology and geology exhibits at this exciting museum.