A Quick Day in Frankfurt
/As I mentioned in my previous post, we had a 13 hour layover in Frankfurt before our connecting flight to South Africa. Our plan was to hit the town after catching up on some light email in the Star Alliance Lounge. Before we get to the city adventure, here is the last sunrise we saw before touchdown.
So off we go into the unknown train station looking for a stop that we know nothing about. After several tries, we concluded that the automated ticket machines don’t accept plastic. OK, time to stand in a long line and do it the hard way. With a group fare ticket in hand off we go the City Centre or Galleria. Watching train stop names that we cant pronounce, blur by, all the time wondering, did we miss the stop, we suddenly arrived. We found empty streets and closed shops due to Easter Monday. I deadheaded for what was to be one of the few lunch spots that was open. Man did we the jackpot. Great food and lots of it, in fact, too much. Schnitzel with a mushroom sauce, red cabbage, and potatoes made for a full meal, oh yes and don’t forget the beer. Off we go to walk this off and man did we walk and walk. We came across a huge and wonderful historic church with some impressive architecture which game me a run for the money with my compact Sony NEX-6 camera. BTW, I am now fully in love with this camera. Armed to the teeth with camera gear, we all decided to to have some fun and take only our compact cameras to the city. What a hoot, it was to shoot this way. Below are a few shots (inside and out) from the church that demonstrate the capabilities of this wonderful camera.
After touring the church, we made our way down to the Main River where we noted a pedestrian bridge down river a bit. What good is a pedestrian bridge if you don’t walk across it? So we strolled across the bridge only to find tons of locks on the bridge. Closer inspection of the locks revealed that they were love locks. Apparently, hundreds of couples have come to the Eiserner Steg, (the pedestrian bridge across the river Main), to show their everlasting love to each other, by attaching a padlock to the bridge (often engraved with their names and the date) and throwing the keys into the river.
This custom has come to Frankfurt from the city of Cologne, where over 40,000 padlocks are attached to a bridge across the river Rhine. The origin is unknown, but similar customs are known from Rome and the Baltic Sea region.
All of the images in this post were taken withe Sony NEX-6 in full automatic mode. I love it. Well, we are now off to South Africa in just a few hours so no more posting until we hit Namibia.
Cheers and happy photo’ing.