Atlantica - 01.06.2001, Page 30

I must be frank. After discovering that
this magazine was sending me to
Frankfurt, I wasn’t exactly jumping for
joy.
Really, when’s the last time you heard
a traveller say, “Hey, let’s go to
Frankfurt!” after paging through one of
those European guidebooks that are
stuffed into nearly every backpacker’s
daypack? Not to mention the fact that
the city’s most famous son, the writer
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, bolted
from Frankfurt to Weimar in 1775, a
move that perturbed many of his fellow
Frankfurters.
Okay, things were different back then,
but you get the point. Frankfurt, despite
housing Europe’s tallest building (golly
gee), is not exactly known as an ‘it’ city.
But the city on the Main River has
more to offer visitors than a multitudi-
nous supply of automated teller
machines and a bunch of businessmen
with briefcases filing in and out of sky-
scrapers on their way to important
financial meetings that will dictate the
economic future of European nations.
Instead, like one of those ‘casserole
surprise’ dishes that mixes a week’s
worth of leftovers to make one great
28 A T L A N T I C A
Fabulous
Frankfurt
Frankfurt has a reputation for dullness – a city of commerce
overrun by bankers. Edward Weinman spent three days in
Europe’s financial capital and found it to be a city of contrasts,
with an impressive skyline eclipsed by postmodern skyscrapers
juxtaposed against streets dominated by grand museums, quaint
historic districts and bustling pedestrian promenades.
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