16 May 2010

This was our first full day in Europe. And it was a lovely day in Frankfurt. By the time we walked to the Dom for church, the clouds were breaking up and the sun was shining. The walk to church along the Main River was punctuated by the sound of many church bells ringing. It was a wonderful sonic sensation to go along with the visuals of the river, city, and several church steeples standing in the skyline.

When we reached Römerberg, Frankfurt's central square, we saw St Paul's Lutheran Church on the platz where we could hear the service in progress--the congregation singing a hymn. After looking around the mostly deserted square a bit, we made our way to St Bartholomew's Cathedral (The Kaiser Dom) for church. The air continued to be punctuated by the pealing of church bells!

We had read that the 10 o'clock service was in English. Alas, it was in German. Even so, I was able to recognize and follow the Epistle Lesson from Revelation, a familiar passage. And we could sing most of the hymns and liturgy from the missal. But didn't get anything from the sermon. The organist played Bach for the Voluntary, and a lively more contemporary piece for the Postlude. The church was rebuilt after the War, but still retains some interesting older altar pieces and the Sleeping Mary Chapel.

After church, we looked around the platz some more, and had lunch and an outdoor food stand. We, of course, had frankfurters—the authentic thing. It came with a kaiser roll and potato salad. A good lunch, especially accompanied by Apfelwein.

From there, we continued our walking tour of Frankfurt, passing several churches along with all the businesses. We stopped at Paulskirke, a former Lutheran church. It was the meeting place for the original unification of German as a state in the 19th century. It was mostly destroyed in WWII and rebuilt. It is now a meeting place rather than a church. From there we went to the Zeil shopping street/district, with many fancy stores. We continued along Fressgass with many eating places for all the office workers. Pretty quiet on a Sunday afternoon!

At the end of Fressgass, we saw the Alte Oper, actually the new opera house/concert hall rebuilt in the old style after the War. The next stop on our walking tour was the Goetehaus. Here, too, we only saw the outside. Then it was back to the hotel for a little rest.

On the way to dinner, we returned to the Dom in hopes of photographing some of the ancient artwork and alter pieces. We were not able to take to time to do that in the morning after the service, because there was another service starting soon. When we reached the Dom, the was a service going on. So I didn't get the pictures of the inside I had hoped, only a couple in the morning.

We then headed across the river and up Sweitzer Strasse for dinner at Adolf Wagner. The pork schnitzel and potatoes were very good. As was the apple strudel we finished with. A good finish to good day.