Most of this page will continue the Monika's Great Frankfurt Memory Tour. But this photo is all mine. After the cemetery we headed toward downtown Frankfurt when I spotted this beauty. I'm sorry about my use of the "0.5" lens on the iPhone, but I didn't want you to miss any of this. First, I LOVE the color. This is not a color you see, well, almost ever. I like that. Seriously. And I love what I call these flowerbox balconies. There's quite a bit of this rounding of the edges in the architecture. I remember this sort of thing in the areas of East Lost Angeles where I spent time as a kid. Is this architecture from the 20's? 30's? 40's? 50's? Not sure yet. Bauhaus influence? If so, I suppose it's pretty distant in this one. Well, it will be a research project.
This is the famous Frankfurt Steeple Tree. I noticed after taking this photo that an airplane is approaching from the right in an eerie echo of the images from 9/11. Rest assured, no steeple was harmed in the making of this photo and any resemblance between... (you know the rest). There are many churches in Germany -- so many, in fact, they are clearly sprouting from the trees. And there are a lot of trees!
We went in this church and contrary to what this photograph would indicate, it was exceptionally clean and beautiful with gothic arches made of red (presumably local) sandstone. I have a picture of it but it's a lot like the inside of other churches of its time and you have probably seen some of these. Instead, I include this photo because it's something I have not really seen. This photo is displayed inside the church and reflects the work required to restore the church to what it is today, but more impressively, the amount of work that was required to rebuild the entire city to what it is today. This is Frankfurt after a multi-day Allied bombing campaign. Nearly 100% rubble. Impressive. Not in a good way. Made me wonder about the reconstruction project. Who did all this work? Apparently brigades of women were the primary clean-up crews - Trümmerfrauen, the Rosie the Riveters of Germany.
Pickleball. There's no escape. It's everywhere.
Monika's Oma and Opa's digs. Not the whole thing, just one apartment. Heimatsiedlung, built between 1927 and 1934, was one of the largest building projects of the Weimar Republic and Frankfurt is trying to get this place listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Yes, there are a lot of apartments in this particular building (great design, isn't it?), and yes, there are several more buildings just like this in the development, but look at that green space! Every set of buildings has that & you can just imagine all the kids running around there. And even though this is pretty dense living, the scale is human -- three stories, wide spaces between buildings, each street named for and populated with a different species of tree, in this case "Under the Acacias" (apparently they have been replanted since the 70's).
A & B took us to a beautiful beer garden (Die Buchscheer) where we did not have beer. In fact, I'm not sure they serve beer here at all. So, let's call it what it is -- an Äppelwoi Garten. That's pronounced AY-pl-voy and I wish you luck. I certainly didn't have it. I did have the drink, however, and like all things different, it defies a clear description and even a black and white like/dislike categorization. It was -- interesting. Really. Apple wine: sweet, sour, puckery, and after several glasses, pretty good. The food was excellent and Monika was excited to have her first GrÜne Sosse (a seven-herb and cream sauce) of the trip. We were treated to a table-side visit from a roving pretzel vendor and brought back two to have with a delicious local Kabinette Reisling. Thank you, Andreas and Beate for a very warm welcome to Germany!
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