Urban Baker's Dozen (part I)

By David Gourley

Frankfurt ('Mainhatten')

Back in the eighties I had the idea that I would like to do a rail trip around Germany.  For various reasons it was not a practical proposition but when, a couple of years ago, I retired, I resurrected the idea.  Or at least thought about doing so.  The proposed trip was not really Cathy’s thing and in any case she was still working.  But she was keen that I go ahead and fulfil my ambition - and, no, it’s not because she wanted to get rid of me!  She urged me to stop thinking about the trip and actually go ahead and do it.

Whilst we did not both go on the trip, we did share an enjoyable afternoon booking it on the internet – something we couldn’t have done in the eighties.  The obvious choice of ticket would have been a German Rail Pass but in fact a Eurail Pass was the better option for it provided greater flexibility: one could use it on ten days, not necessarily consecutive, over the period of a month.  Pushing the boat out a bit, I got a first-class pass.  I realized that there was an opportunity cost if I confined its use to just one country.  So it did occur to me as I stood on Munich Station that I could, with my ticket, be going to Prague or Budapest or south into Italy.  But the ticket was the means to my end, a rail trip around Germany.

Next we booked stays in five hotels – I am not, I’m afraid, the kind of laidback or adventurous person who is happy to arrive in a city without knowing where they are going to stay that night.  The journey was from south to north through the centre of the country.  Only once did I venture west of the Rhine (but a few years previously we had done a Rhine Cruise, VISA 103-4).  And there was one foray into the former East, something else that wouldn’t have been possible, or at any rate would have been difficult, in the eighties since the Berlin Wall didn’t come down until the very end of that decade.  Berlin itself was not on my itinerary.  We had been there (VISA 89) and would like to go back, but it would require a fair bit of time to do it justice and I wanted to get around more.  I put together an itinerary, using Deutsche Bahn timetables, which gave a mix of time in my chosen five cities and rail trips to other cities.  I found the timetables to be very reliable so almost everything went to plan.  Finally we booked flights. 

I had three nights in Munich, as distinct from two elsewhere.  There is an S-bahn link from the airport direct to the Hauptbahnhof (main station) and my hotel was easily found, so near the station that it is virtually on the station.  I had the bright idea of using my pass on the S-bahn where it would have been accepted.  Cathy pointed out that I would thus be doing myself out of one of my ten days of more extensive travel.  My hotel was not the best of this trip, but it was friendly and, for the duration of one’s stay, gives one a complimentary travel pass for the city’s excellent transport system: buses, trams, S-bahn and U-bahn (metro). 

We had been to Munich a number of years previously, when our daughter had a short-term work posting there.  We had packed quite a lot into just a weekend, including a performance of the opera and a trip out to Neuschwanstein, the fairytale castle that inspired Disney, also taking in the historic city of Augsburg.  The castle was one of those built by supposedly “mad” King Ludwig who was deposed and, some believe, murdered by the Bavarian state.  But today Bavarians are surely grateful to him, given all the revenue from tourists flocking to see his castles. 

Munich is a handsome city.  The feel, I would say, is more Central than West European.  It is the capital of Bavaria, which in the nineteenth century was not quite sure that it wanted to be part of a united Germany and to this day maintains a strong sense of independence.

On my first evening there was time before dinner for a quick stroll into the centre.  Here, as in other German cities, the central area is a safe environment which is largely pedestrianized, but there were a couple of minor annoyances.  Firstly, it was necessary, on the way in from my hotel, to cross a busy main road and the wait could seem interminable.  Traffic, here and elsewhere in Germany, is allowed to pass through red lights if there are no pedestrians but the reverse doesn’t apply.  So one waits and waits and, even when the light does at last go green, one waits a bit longer since it seems to be not the done thing immediately to set forth.  Secondly there are more cyclists than back home, above all in Munich.  Yes, I know I should be applauding that since cycling is a healthy and very green form of transport.  And people were riding in responsible manner: no sign of any ‘lycra louts’.  Even so, I did in places feel a bit overwhelmed by the number of cyclists, with the pathway seemingly belonging more to them than to pedestrians. 

I noted on the first evening that one of the two towers of the beautiful main church, the Frauenkirche, was scaffolded up.  I had been intending that, as on my previous visit, I would go up to the top so hoped that it was the unscaffolded tower that was open to the public. 

The next two days followed my normal pattern of trips out of the city, followed by time in the city.  In Munich tram 19, which link the Hauptbahnhof, and thus my hotel, to the Ostbahnhof (or East Station), is a good way of seeing the city centre.  I also did some exploring on foot including a long stroll to the extensive English Garden, so named from the type of landscaping, reminiscent of ‘Capability’ Brown.  Here, for the first time, I came across a phenomenon not to my knowledge found in Britain: ‘love-locks’ or padlocks that can weigh down railings on bridges, romantic but considered by authorities to be something of a nuisance.

There were poignant reminders of World War II on my stroll to the Garden.  The Bürgersaalkirche contains the shrine to Pater Rupert Mayer who was an opponent of the Nazi regime and was canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1987.  He survived the war, but died of a stroke a few months later.  In the vicinity of the Bavarian Chancellery is a memorial to the White Rose, the Munich-based anti-Nazi group.  Sadly most of its members were executed but one member, Traute Lafrenz, is alive still, having emigrated after the war to the United States.  The White Rose looked forward to a “New Europe”, the bases of which would be “freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the protection of individual citizens from the arbitrary will of criminal regimes of violence”.  Inconceivable though it might have seemed at that time, just such a Europe was to come into being a few years later, thanks to far-sighted statesmen in their own country and elsewhere.  It is a Europe from which Britain, foolishly in my view, has decided to turn its back.

A dilemma posed itself on this, the first of my ten days of rail travel.  On double-decker trains I like to sit on the upper deck but on this train it was for second-class passengers, whereas my pass entitled me to first-class travel.  I stuck to first but wasn’t sure this was the right choice.  Odd that on the Continent trains, but not buses, are double-deck, whereas in the UK it’s the other way round.  In fact there once were double-deck trains in the UK.  When I first started work in the sixties, I sometimes commuted to and from London in such a train, one of just two. They ran on the lines out to Dartford, through the area where I lived at that time.  They were regarded as a failed experiment, but were retained for their working lives.

It was pleasant to sit back in my carriage, even if it was lower deck, and enjoy the Bavarian countryside.  Bavaria, I reflected, is a region which has everything, bar a sea coast: lakes, mountains, beautiful countryside, attractive towns and villages, a high standard of living, low unemployment...  what’s not to like?

Regensburg is located on the Danube and its Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It has been described as “Italy’s northernmost city”.   I made the discovery that Galerie Kaufhof, a nationwide chain of department stores, provides good buffet lunches at a reasonable price.  One invariably ascends to the fourth floor, passing the ladieswear and menswear floors.   Here I photographed my plate of chilli con carne.  I wouldn’t normally do such a thing but the reason here was the juxtaposition: this was an al fresco area overlooked by the city’s beautiful spires. 

I wandered through the Old Town, then across what is perhaps the city’s most iconic feature, the twelfth century Stone Bridge, which crosses the Danube.  Unfortunately it was being renovated so there was a lot of scaffolding and for most of the way across one had to use a temporary construction.  I wasn’t having much luck in this regard for, yes, back in Munich the scaffolded tower in the Frauenkirche was the one that is normally open to the public (one could still of course go inside the church).  The walk across the bridge was still worthwhile given the wonderful view back to the Old Town.  Located by the bridge in the Old Town is the historic Sausage Kitchen.  It purports to be the oldest continuously open public restaurant in the world.

My next journey took me out of Bavaria, into Baden-Württemberg and on to its capital, Stuttgart.  At its station there is a tower which one can ascend for free.  From here it is evident that, unlike Munich, this is not an especially beautiful city.  It is by no means an unpleasant city but after World War II, its centre was rebuilt in modern, functional style, apparent in Königstrasse, the main thoroughfare which runs through the centre from the station.

I called in at the tourist office.  Naturally enough local authorities like to blow their trumpets and the city guide eulogizes the main square, the Schlossplatz, claiming it to be “one of Europe’s most beautiful squares”.  Well, I’ve been fortunate enough to visit St Mark’s Square in Venice, Old Town Square in Prague and Grande Place in Brussels and I’m sorry to say to Stuttgarters that their square, pleasant though it might be, does not begin to compare.  Scattered around are a few historic buildings and some parkland.  I enjoyed my time in Stuttgart but soon concluded that the remainder of my day would be better spent seeing more of Munich. 

To get back to the Hauptbahnhof I used the U-bahn.  I was impressed that quite a few cities in Germany have metros: I had used the one in Munich and was also to use those in Frankfurt and in Hanover.  In Britain, by contrast, the only metros outside London are the circular line in Glasgow and the innovative Tyneside Metro in Newcastle.   I think that in Germany cities generally have more power and influence than their British counterparts and, as a result, have greater civic consciousness.   This might be something to do with geopolitics, for the capital of West Germany was a fairly small city, Bonn.  Even though Berlin has resumed its rightful place as capital of a united Germany, I don’t think the other big cities are going to bend the knee any time soon.  England by contrast tends to be fairly ‘Londoncentric’ – something I think that is increasingly recognized, resulting in the proposals for a ‘Northern Powerhouse’. 

I chose the time of my train carefully.  Some trains would simply have repeated yesterday’s journey to Stuttgart and carried on from there.  I wanted to see new territory, so got a train that went north to Nuremberg, then west to Frankfurt.  In Würzburg I was impressed that there were hillside vineyards very close by.  

Ominously, a weather map at Munich Station showed bright sunshine over Bavaria and rain over the rest of Germany.  Sure enough it started to rain when we reached Aschaffenburg.  This city is still in Bavaria, but far closer to Frankfurt than Munich; it is considered by Lonely Planet to be “in style terms more Hessian than Bavarian”.  Fortunately it was dry again by the time I got to Frankfurt and rain was not to give me too much trouble in coming days. 

This was the nicest of my five stays.  My hotel was the Intercontinental, a short walk from the station.  The friendly receptionist offered me a pass that gave use of the top floor lounge for €50 for a 24-hour period.  Usually one doesn’t, as an ordinary client, get a sniff of a hotel lounge.  The deal included complimentary food and drink, including beer or wine.  Given that breakfast, not here included, was over €30, it was a no-brainer.  I enjoyed a light lunch in the lounge, and a good dinner.

The view from my fourteenth floor room was one of my best ever.  I looked straight out at the city’s skyscrapers.  These are an unusual feature for a German, indeed for a Continental European, city and they have earned Frankfurt the sobriquet “Mainhatten”.  I walked into the city.  This entailed a pleasant stroll along the Main.  I crossed over the river to the south side then re-crossed later on using one of the two old pedestrian bridges.  From there it was a short distance to the Old Town, centred on Römerplatz, an area that was lovingly rebuilt after the World War II bombing.  I was pleased that despite my advancing years – I was now heading into my late sixties – I was able without difficulty to ascend the tower of the Cathedral, 328 steps. 

I had wondered whether “Mainhatten” would be a rather cold sort of place, but not so at all.  This is an attractive, cultured and vibrant city that oozes prosperity.  It is also a historic city, its modernity notwithstanding.  In former times it was the place where the kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire (which was not, it has been said, holy or Roman or an empire) were crowned.  The Empire, a collection of numerous independent states, included most of present-day Germany so it might be said that Frankfurt was the unofficial German capital.  Immediately after World War II, it was the putative capital of West Germany.  It seemed the obvious choice, roughly in the middle of the country, on the Main so not in South or North Germany, in historic terms the true divide between Germans, rather than the artificial East-West split resulting from the Cold War.  But the wily Konrad Adenauer, the first Chancellor of West Germany, wanted the capital to appear makeshift since he didn’t want it to be thought that the division of Germany was permanent.  Frankfurt, he feared, would settle down to the role too comfortably.  Hence the choice of a much smaller city, Bonn.  Today Frankfurt doesn’t get to be the capital of anything: it is by far the largest town in the Land of Hesse but the kudos of being its capital goes to Wiesbaden.  But, as it houses the HQ of the European Central Bank, it might be regarded as the financial capital of Europe. 

I wandered on into the financial district though not as far as the towers of “Mainhatten”.  The Stock Exchange is in a surprisingly old building.  There is a plaque here commemorating Ludwig Erhard, the Finance Minister who presided over West Germany’s Wirtschaftswunder or Economic Miracle.  He succeeded Adenauer as Federal Chancellor but it is thought that he was far less happy in that role.

With dinner that night I had a glass of cider.  I was surprised to find that this is a Frankfurt speciality since, as I have found to my chagrin, cider isn’t generally available on the Continent.  It wasn’t anything like cider back home: something of an acquired taste but, given time, I might have acquired it.

First  Published in VISA 131 (February 2017)

The Melting Pot

by Glen Strachan

My wife and I have often used Frankfurt as the major European transport hub for which it has long been famous. My mother and most of my family live in various parts of Germany while our own children live in our native Scotland so it is no surprise that many of us pass through Frankfurt, quite often hurrying to make connections etc.

This visit was planned quite differently and, for once, we had the opportunity to look at this city in more or less the way that we view other places of interest. Our first impression was of people on the move and a great vitality - much of it emanating from the non-Germans in the city, a growing group that gives this most cliched looking German city a very different feel from that suggested by the Germanic architecture of the city centre. The buildings may have represented some of the best architectural values of both traditional and very new Germany, but many of the people thronging the downtown streets give that area more of a look of Ankara or Istanbul. This impression is confirmed by many of the food shops and restaurants - not to mention the posters on the walls which advertise large venue concerts from the most popular Turkish singers of the day.

That new architecture has created a very distinctive high rise core to the city centre and the river Main, as a centre point, is accorded the respect that such a powerful economic aid to the region demands. Later on this visit somebody asked us if we had enjoyed our time in ‘Mainhatten’ - one of the nicknames that Frankfurt has collected in its ‘tall buildings years’. These massive buildings have made this one of the most concentrated skyscraper communities anywhere in the world and closer examination of the ownership of these properties shows that they are almost entirely the brainchild of the huge banking concerns that are headquartered in Frankfurt.

Stepping out of the city’s main railway station (that arch over the entrance seems to be a prime target for every television news camera crew covering European financial matters), our first impression was of great volumes of traffic, much of it boasting large limousines heading over to the nearby ‘financial district’. The second impression when crossing the road to the Willy Brandt Platz (history buffs might see some irony in the naming of this place for that gentleman) was of the ragged looking youngsters who comprised the citizens of a tented village known as ‘The Occupy Frankfurt Zone’. The contrast was striking, as Africans and Turks walked past these young Germans, who were protesting against what they clearly consider to be the unfairness and futility of a future that they believe has been blighted by these bankers in whose shadows they sleep each night. While there did seem to be something of a nervousness shown by the visitors to these banking establishments as they looked back towards ‘the other half’ of society, a range of other ironies emerged.

The Africans and Turks have come to mighty Frankfurt in search of a better, freer life. While the protesters make a fair point about the misfortune that they face today, perhaps the group which faces the greatest challenges is that privileged range of bankers and economists, currently assigned with finding a solution to that near-eternal financial conundrum - the impossible future of a Euro that was curiously believed at one stage (and that no further back than a couple of decades ago) to be an instrument capable of solving most of the economic and political ills of Europe. As Greece and Spain melt into financial disaster, I have a sudden little vision of the ultimate irony of these failing fat cats diving out of the windows of these collapsing banking organisations and flailing down towards the Occupy Frankfurt protesters in the streets below. Frankfurt confirmed the impression that we live in interesting times with even more promised in the years ahead.

All of that said, this city was still considered by the US-based Mercer Group’s Quality of Living Survey late in 2011 to be the seventh best large city in all the world alongside Munich and not far behind the top pair - Vienna and Zurich. I certainly saw nothing during our visit to suggest that Mercer Group was wrong about that!

We sought a restaurant for lunch and were not disappointed by the eastern food on offer: and then we happened upon an unexpected pleasure. Having spent some time in the beautiful Romerberg area we came across two very interesting exhibitions in the Schirn Kunstahlle - a wonderful post-modern building that presents highly intriguing exhibitions in a very sympathetic space. But a word about the Romerberg district first - although it is really best illustrated by the photograph that accompanies this piece. It was fortunate that the weather had relented to provide a beautiful sunny afternoon for us to stand in the centre of this beautiful ‘square’ and take in the full beauty of the symmetry of these buildings. Amongst many fabulous half-timbered houses and the ‘Ostzeile’ housing row that was rebuilt, at no small expense, in 1986 to the original plans, stands the Rathaus - the former patrician villa with its distinctive three gabled roof that has been Frankfurt’s city hall since 1405 and which remains the seat of the rather fortunate city Lord Mayor to this day.

There is an almost mind-numbing array of very significant buildings in this part of the city. It includes many churches filled with echoes of the Holy Roman Empire and the Franconian past, but probably the double whammy of the Kaiserdom set within metres of the remains of a Roman military outpost which includes thermal baths, and a Carolingian Royal Palace, takes pride of place in a star-studded array of sites.

Standing high above that impressive ruin is the Emperor’s Cathedral or Kaiserdom which is reputed to have been consecrated in the name of St Bartholomew, the Apostle, in 1239. After 1356, it was the official site for the elections of emperors of the Holy Roman Empire. Ten such imperial coronations took place between 1562 and 1792. While I do not intend to offer this Frankfurt piece as a tour of the city’s churches, I should also mention the Protestant church of St Catherine - maybe the most beautiful of these magnificent religious buildings and itself carrying many layers of political and religious history that echo the Kaiserdom.

Back in the Schirn were two major exhibitions that could hardly have been more appropriate for the time. The work of Edvard Munch, a man who died in his 81st year just twelve months before I was born and, as much as any other painter, was a bridge from the old world to something recognisable as the time in which we now live, was on display in profusion before the admiring German and international observers - in a space that projected his work in a way that might have boggled even the mind of this remarkable artist.It was impossible to see the banner outside the Schirn and not be reminded of Munch’s ‘Scream’ - a painting that is perhaps not only the most famous of all time (sorry, Mona Lisa - we did see you in Paris a few years ago and I was somewhat underwhelmed), but which could hardly be more relevant to the confusion of ‘Occupy Frankfurt’, melting currencies, crumbling economies and the unmistakable stench of impending Euro-doom. In his ‘Scream’, Edvard, the son of an obsessively pious troubled son of a priest, and a clearly troubled individual throughout a life of fame and respect which also included a sad catalogue of mental illness, expressed confusion and pain. This could well be the perfect illustration of the state of mind of both the puzzled high floor bankers of Frankfurt and the bewildered ‘Occupiers’ below. I just enjoyed his small obsessions with vampires and red haired women, since my favourite example of the latter was with me as we savoured the odd delights of this unique painter. My copy of the ‘Scream’ still stands on top of a bookshelf in our computer room, as it has done in all of its plastic glory over the last couple of decades across our various homes.The perfect foil for the heavy nature of Mr Munch’s material was the art of ‘Mr Mental States’ himself - the man from Concord who came out of New York’s East Village art scene in the 1980s - and provided a wickedly satirical eye to his many provocative subjects - George Condo.

From Frankfurt it was into the hinterland of Bavaria by a fast train and a welcome from my mother and sister as we arrived in the beautiful little town of Lohr am Main. Despite being in Bavaria, Lohr is a typical Franconian old town with its half-timbered buildings and some stunning views across the mighty river Main and the surrounding forest land. This little town of 16,500 inhabitants in the Spessart Forest has quite a lot more to it than immediately meets the eye. Not least is the fact that two of the largest hydraulic companies in the world are based here and, on a more prosaic level, the old fishermen’s district boasts a tower which, until comparatively recent times, was inhabited by the tower keeper and his family. My brother-in-law was unfortunate enough to have this family on his register and, as their doctor, he would climb the many steps up to their home on his emergency house calls. It was his good luck that the family enjoyed fine health throughout most of that time and they have now moved away, closer to ground level.

We were able to conclude this visit to Germany with a very enjoyable Saturday evening invitation to dinner outside the town, deep in the Spessart Forest at a hunting lodge. The owners have long been friends of my sister and brother-in-law and they live in Frankfurt but retain this lodge which has been in the family since they acquired it in settlement of a business debt in 1950. As often as they can manage to get away from their desks in Frankfurt, they take to the rural life and go into the wilds of the Spessart. That results in occasional dinner invitations for a dozen people - many of whom are known to one another and, this time, Flora and I were the two strangers in the gathering. Several of the guests were back in Germany after long-term overseas postings as part of the development of that pair of hydraulic companies. Most of the others were surgeons.

The food was superb and their conversation was generously delivered in English throughout, although we were the only non-German speakers in the group. We learned many things but two of the more trivial items stand out. We were warned not to leave our shoes outside the front door as the foxes had been about. Apparently foxes steal shoes, for no obvious reason that anybody could point out then, and large numbers of stray shoes are collected when lairs are uncovered during the course of hunting. We still giggle a bit at the prospect of these Bavarian foxes tottering along speedily on a couple of pairs of high heels. It’s interesting that the animal kingdom can also boast an interest in foot fetishism. Clearly Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was not alone in such an indulgence.

We also learned a good deal about mushrooms from our host’s husband. He has a long-standing interest in these and even keeps a small library of books on the subject at the lodge. The oddest story that he told about harvesting mushrooms was confirmed by two of the surgeons at the table that night. A family of five had been gathering some of the many mushrooms growing in the Spessart forest and had used these in a stew that included wild boar. Shortly after eating they had called out the emergency services and, by the following morning, only the grandfather remained alive. Parents and both children died quickly; the cause was clear. They had mistakenly cooked some highly poisonous mushrooms, confusing these with a quite benign variety growing in the same part of the forest. One odd aspect in all of this was that the old man was not only still alive but perfectly fit and healthy despite, on his own admission, having eaten more of that food than anybody else at the table during the fateful evening.

For a period of months he was suspected by local police of being a murderer and it was only much later that the reason for his reprieve was revealed. The old fellow had suffered for many years from a debilitating kidney illness that just happened to be the instrument of his salvation. His powerful medication for treating that illness had somehow nullified the impact of the poison that the mushrooms brought into his system during that unfortunate evening. He still lives on his own in the area - a rather unhappy medical miracle.

The mushrooms used for that evening’s meal were far less exotic. We thanked her for her splendid hospitality and left for the long drive back into town, debating the suggestion offered by another guests that an unconventional solution for Europe’s current economic woes could one day be a joint Korean/ Chinese buyout of the entire continent. ‘Scream’ about that if you must!

First published in VISA 103 (Jun 2012)