It was cool, partly cloudy day today here in Frankfort. After a nice breakfast here at the hotel we hopped onto the subway to meet our walking tour guide for an introduction to Frankfort.

I have to say we learned a lot. This city has been here for better than 2000 years, and due to its strategic location it has changed hands multiple times: first a Celtic people, then the Romans, then the Franks (thereby the name: the ford of the Franks. Catchy!), then various German city-states, then the French, then onto modern history. It being on, or near, navigable rivers made it into a trading city right from the start, but it also became an important center of finance and an important place politically, as St Bartholomew’s Church became the spot where Holy Roman Emperors were elected.

The church is a really fine looking building; we did not get to go inside since it is Sunday and they were holding Mass all day. We learned that very few buildings in the core of the city survived WW 2, but that this Catholic Church and a Protestant church did avoid bombing. This means that very few buildings in the downtown predate 1945. On the other hand, the locals had an empty canvas to rebuild their city.

Our tour guide took us to a remnant of the ancient city walls; adjacent to this was where the Jewish ghetto had been until about 1850. He was able to speak to the group about some of the ways Frankfort has chosen to remember the holocaust. Greg got a little emotional, which just is getting him ready to see Dachau later this week.

Later in the afternoon we met our travel group for the first time, did a little bit of sightseeing with them, then had dinner as a group. I think it’s going to be a great 12 days. We head towards Cologne tomorrow, with a short boat ride on the Rhine and then lunch in a castle. We’ll tell you all about it in our next chapter…