TRAVEL REVIEW: FRANKFURT

Hello my darlings. It has been a while! I hope everyone has been doing great.

Recently I visited Frankfurt for a 3-day stopover on my way to Sweden and I reckon it'd be nice to do a quick review for those intending to come here.

Places I visited:

Zeil shopping district
Frankfurt am Main Station bridge
(Konstable) Hauptwache area

(It is not a lot, I know, as we were on a free&easy trip and didn't want to pack all the tourist attractions in a few days partly also because we didn't think it'd give us a true view of Frankfurt)

First impressions:

I found much of Frankfurt's architecture to be modern and aesthetically beautiful, with complex metal works on many buildings. Also, many German people spoke very good English (except for a particular convenience store Haussman whose employees don't seem to be able to speak it) so you'd have no trouble moving around. Great for a non-German speaker!

The people:

Most are very polite, and seemed really hardworking. I think they're taller than Singaporeans in general, though not very much taller. A lot of Germans appear very chubby which I kinda found cute (hehehe).

The food:

WURST WURST WURST, I'm not kidding you. At least, this is what stood out for us tourists. Everything seemed to be related to hearty doses of meat. In fact, my mother picked up a plastic container thinking it was coleslaw when it was actually ham & mayonnaise (no idea what's the name of it). It was really hard to get a daily dose of vegetal fibre there! Anyway, my dad eagerly ushered us to buy the famous curry wurst that people have been talking about on the net. While it is nice, it is just curry powder and barbecue sauce topped onto chopped wurst.

The safety:

Very few shady-looking people around although I'd say you'd best remain vigilant. I'm not sure if it is less safe than Singapore statistically speaking, although I did feel a little unsafe in some train stations that were quite deserted. Plus, you do not need a train ticket to enter the stations - you just need to hold on to a ticket in the event that the train conductor decides to check (which they never seem to do).

The places:
From our conversations with many locals, Frankfurt appears to be just a "city area" and is not as exciting as the other parts of Germany but I found it really nice and clean. My only few gripes perhaps is the stark lack of toilets and ridiculous prices for drinks at metros (4 euros for a bottled coke?!).

Zeil Shopping District had a lot of shops for shopaholics to trawl, while Hauptwache area had a lot of street food. Frankfurt Main Station was a little old and untidy, but there are some nice shops in the area to check out like the huge supermarket there (I enjoy checking out stuff sold in supermarkets mwahahah).

Overall, I liked Frankfurt. A thumbs up for me.

Next up, is a travel review for Paris.

Till then!
~J