A German Meal

On the evening of my arrival in Frankfurt, I went to an Irish pub and had fish and chips for my first meal in Germany.  That was simply because the pub was practically next door to the hotel, and in my jet-lagged state I was not going to wander around looking for a restaurant.  However, after my first full day here, it was time to have a proper meal of German food.  The question, however, was where to go?  When I visited the "Altstadt" or Old Town I noticed a number of places serving traditional German food.  I was worried that they might be tourist traps since they were located in the picturesque but very touristy Römerberg.  (Rick Steves always says that you find places off the beaten track where the locals eat.)  Well, after roaming around town, I had not seen any traditional German restaurants outside of the Old Town.  So, after spending several hours at the Städel Art Museum, I backtracked to the "Altstadt", and ate at a place located in a beautiful recreation of a half-timbered house.

The restaurant is called Schwarzer Stern (which in German means Black Star).  There were quite a few tourists there, but there also seemed to be some locals.  Instead of ordering schnitzel or wurst, I had "käsespätzle".  "Spätzle" are little dumplings.  My mother used to make them, and I imagine that she learned the recipe from her Swiss-born grandmother.  This, however, was not like my mother's "spätzle".  Cheese was melted in with the dumplings, and they were topped with onions.  They were very good.  The "käsespätzle" were served with a side salad.  I'm not a beer drinker, so I ordered a typical non-alcoholic German beverage, "apfelschorl", apple juice mixed with sparkling water.  It was very refreshing.

For dessert, what could be more German than "apfelstrudel"... apple strudel?  This apple strudel was excellent.  The filling was generous, and the dough was crisp... not soggy or  rubbery.  It might be the best strudel I have ever eaten.

That wraps up my experience in Frankfurt.  I am falling behind in my reporting.  I already have two day excursions to Cologne and Heidelberg under my belt.   So, we will say, "Auf wiedersehen" to Frankfurt.

More Art

At the Städel Art Museum in Frankfurt, the older art (1300 to 1800) is located on the top floor.  On the next floor down is art from the 19th and 20th centuries.  (On the ground floor is contemporary art, but that was not of interest to me.  Besides, after covering two floors, "museum fatigue" was setting in.)

Logically there is a great number of works from German painters.  I am not familiar with most of them.  However there are also works representing many of the well-known names of European art.

Here are a few...

"Farmhouse in Neunen"

by Vincent Van Gogh

1885

I would have never recognized this as a Van Gogh painting.  It was done before he moved to France.

"Landscape - Road with Trees in Rocky Mountains"

by Paul Cezanne

1870

"A Game of Croquet"

by Edouard Manet 

1873

"After the Luncheon"

by August Renoir

1879

"Houses on the Bank of the River Zaan"

by Claude Monet

1871

"Musicians in the Orchestra"

by Edgar Degas

"Portrait of Therese Karl"

by Fritz von Uhde

1890

There is a sad story about this painting that is told on the plaque next to it.  The painting was purchased by a wealthy Jewish art collector, Gustav Rüdenberg.  He was forced to sell the  paintings in his collection due to the economic restrictions on Jews under the Nazi regime.  Eventually he and his wife were relocated to the Jewish ghetto and then later murdered.  This painting was returned to his heirs in 2022, and they donated it to the Städel Museum.

"Jealousy"

by Edvard Munch

1913

Most everyone is familiar with Munch's famous painting "The Scream", but this is the first time that I had seen anything else by the Norwegian painter.

"Fishbone Forest"

by Paul Klee

1927

Klee was born in Switzerland, but spent much of his life and did most of his painting in Germany.  The Nazis considered his art "degenerate", and he was fired from his position as a teacher at the Düsseldorf Academy.  He returned to his native Switzerland 1935 and died there five years later.

"The Synagogue in Frankfurt"

by Max Beckman

1919

Beckman was also branded a "degenerate" artist by the Nazis, and he was dismissed from his teaching position at the Frankfurt Art School.  In 1937 he fled to the Netherlands, and tried unsuccessfully to get a visa to the United States.  When the Germans invaded the Netherlands, they attempted to draft him even though he was a sixty year old with a heart condition.  After the war, he was finally allowed to come to the U.S., and he lived there until his death in 1960.

Old Masters at the Städel

I spent several hours on Friday at Frankfurt's Städel Art Museum.  The top floor is devoted to old masters from 1300 to 1800.

I generally do not have a great deal of interest in old religious paintings, but there were some pieces here that were so impressive that they could not be ignored.

This altarpiece was created in 1330 for a church in the city of Altenberg.

 

This triptych was done by an unknown Dutch artist between 1530 and 1540.  It hung unnotice in a Frankfurt church until restoration revealed its beauty.  It is now on permanent loan to the Städel.

 

This enormous series of panels was done by Hans Holbein the Elder (his better-known son was the court painter of King Henry VIII of England) in 1501.  They were commissioned for the high altar of the Dominican monastery in Frankfurt.  There were paintings on the front and rear of the wings of the altarpiece.  In the 19th century when the fronts and backs were separated, one of the paintings, "The Entombment" was lost.  A replica of that missing panel is shown in black and white.

Lucas Cranach the Elder, one of the most important German Renaissance painters, did this triptych in 1509.

  

Here are some more paintings by some of the better-known old masters...

"Portrait of Cardinal Gaspar de Borja y Velasco"

by the Spanish master Diego Velázquez

circa 1643 - 1645

"The Adoration of the Magi in a Winter Landscape"

by Pieter Bruegel the Younger

circa 1630

This subject was originally done by Pieter's father, but the son painted numerous variations of  it, each slightly different.

"Portrait of the Artist's Father"

by Albrecht Dürer

circa 1600

"Idealized Portrait of a Lady"

by Sandro Boticelli

circa 1480 -1485

"Portrait of Pope Julius II"

by Raphael

1511

"Portrait of a Young Man"

by Titian

circa 1510

"Portrait of Simon George of Cornwall"

by Hans Holbein the Younger"

circa 1535 -1540

The museum has two, possibly three paintings by Rembrandt.

"Portrait of Maertgen van Bilderbeecq"

by Rembrandt

1633

"The Blinding of Samson"

by Rembrandt

1636

This portrait of Rembrandt's housekeeper and lover, Hendrickje Stoffels, was attributed to the Dutch master.  In 1969 a Rembrandt expert determined that the painting was done by an imitator.  But then in 2015, another Dutch art historian re-attributed the work to Rembrandt.

For me a highlight of the visit was to see a painting by one of my favorite old masters, the Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer.  Due to the fact that his paintings are done with painstaking, almost photographic precision, he did relatively few paintings.  They are usually interior scenes, illuminated by light coming in from a window to the left.

"The Geographer"

by Johannes Vermeer

1669

Next, we will go downstairs to see some more modern paintings.

On the Road to Art

 As I mentioned in my last post, the other place that I wanted to see in Frankfurt was the Städel Art Museum.  To get there from the Old Town, I had to cross the river.  Nearby is a Frankfurt landmark, the Eisener Steg (Iron Bridge).  It is a pedestrian footbridge that was originally built in 1912, and then rebuilt in 1946 after the war.

The bridge has become an alternative to the Pont de Arts in Paris where couples used to put padlocks to symbolize their love.  The "love locks" were removed from the Paris bridge in 2015, but the Iron Bridge still has them... perhaps thousands of them, but not as many as there were on the Pont de Arts.

If there had been vendors along the river selling padlocks (as there used to be in Paris), I would have bought one and put Alejandro's and my name on it. 

The bridge is also a great vantage point for photographing Frankfurt's skyline.

Walking along the south side of the Main River also provides good views of the city.

The southern bank of the river is lined with museums.  They include the Museum of Design, the Museum of World Cultures, the Architecture Museum and the Film Museum.  However, the most important is the Städel Museum.

The museum was founded in 1817 after Johann Städel, a wealthy banker and patron of the arts left his extensive collection, his entire fortune and his house for the creation of an art institute.  In 1878 a new building, in neo-Renaissance style, was built as a home for the museum.  The Städel fortune was used to expand the collection including works by contemporary artists.  In 1937, seventy-seven modern paintings were confiscated by the Nazi government which judged them to be "degenerate art".  In 1939 the remaining collection was hidden at a castle in Bavaria to protect the art from Allied bombing.  Indeed, the museum suffered damage during the war, and it was rebuilt in 1966.

Today the museum has in its collection more than 3000 paintings spanning the 13th through the 21st centuries.

In the next post we will go inside and look at some the artwork.

 

In the "Altstadt"

Today was my day to do some sightseeing in Frankfurt.  Frankfurt is the busy transportation, commercial and financial hub for Germany, and really there are not a lot of tourist attractions here.  It is not the romanticized image of the picturesque German town.  However, there were two places I wanted to see... the Städel Museum, the city's most important art gallery, and the "Altstadt".  "Alstadt" is a word I will be using frequently on this trip.  It means "Old Town", and I will be visiting several "Altstädte" (the plural of the word) during this trip.

This morning, I was up early to begin my explorations.  Looking out my hotel window, it seemed that it was going to be a sunny day.

After a buffet breakfast at the hotel, I set out on foot to the "Altstadt".  My initial impression of the neighborhood proved to be true.  Head to the right from the hotel and you are immediately in a very sketchy area.  But turn onto the first street to the left, and the neighborhood is fine.  A few blocks down that street and you reach the Main River, a tributary of the Rhine which cuts through the city.  There is a walkway along the river for pedestrians and bicyclists.

 How did Canadian geese get to Germany? 😃

It's a short walk of perhaps twenty minutes to reach the "Altstadt".  All of the "old" buildings in the Old Town are actually 20th century reconstructions.  The city was devastated by Allied bombings during World War II.  Of the more than 2000 medieval half-timbered buildings, only one survived intact.  Skeletons of the stone buildings were left.  The only building left largely intact was the Cathedral.  This photo inside the entrance to the Cathedral shows what the "Altstadt" looked like after the bombings.

So, all of these old-looking buildings are younger, or not much older, than I.

The heart of the Old Town is a square called the Römerberg.  It is dominated by the Römer, which has been the city hall of Frankfurt for over 600 years.  It is named after the wealthy merchant family who sold the property to the city council in 1405.  It was destroyed in 1944 by the Allied bombing, and the reconstruction was inaugurated in 1955.

The statue of justice in front of the Römer

The skyscrapers of modern Frankfurt in the background

On the other side of the plaza is a block of buildings which has been rebuilt as it appeared in the 1500s.

On the Römerberg

One of my first attempts at taking a selfie on my cell phone

On another side of the plaza is the old church of St. Nicholas.

The church dates back to 1150.  Gothic embellishments were made in the 13th and 15th centuries.  It was reconstructed in 1951, and it is now a Protestant church.

Behind the Römer, a neo-Gothic annex was added to the city hall in the late 19th century.

The covered bridge connecting the city buildings was referred to "the Bridge of Sighs" because citizens used it when they paid their taxes.

 The medieval-style tower that was part of the city hall addition was nicknamed "Langer Franz" (Tall Franz) after the mayor at that time.

Across from the city hall addition is St. Paul's Church.  The neo-classical building replaced a Gothic church which stood there previously.  In 1848 it was the site of the first German parliament.

Dominating the Altstadt is the Cathedral of Frankfurt.  Technically it is not a cathedral since it is not the seat of a bishop.  It is instead an "imperial great church", since it was here that many of the Holy Roman Emperors were elected and coronated.

The church was built in the 14th and 15th centuries in the Gothic style.  I am sure, however that it will pale in comparison with the Cathedral of Cologne which I will soon be visiting.

There are several Gothic altarpieces which survived the war.

For three euros, you can climb the more than 300 steps to reach the top of the 312-foot-high spire.  The view was worth the effort.  I was huffing and puffing, but this septuagenarian made it to the top.

The towers of modern Frankfurt as a backdrop to the Old Town