The combination of commuting a fairly long distance for work, and several weekends away means that I haven’t had a chance to catch up on the blog. Fortunately the weekends away have all been put to good use, and that means anything not related to work. Three weekends ago now, I ended up in Frankfurt for a long weekend. The combination of cheap flights with Ryanair, and an offer to stay at my mate, Martin’s place meant that there was little reason not to go.

Frankfurt is home to the “financial capital” of Europe, and is also the place where I believe the Euro is minted. Like most financial cities, it’s chock full of commuters, since why would bankers want to live in the city where they work when they can afford many other places to live? This means that strangely enough, when I got there Thursday evening, it seemed much busier than the rest of the weekend. I’d have to recommend anyone flying for the weekend to avoid flying Ryanair to Frankfurt. Firstly, they fly in the inappropriately named Frankfurt-Hahn airport that is actually in Hahn, and is two hours away from Frankfurt. Of course, there is a bus (which is additional) but it only departs every hour. Fortunately I wasn’t so much so in a rush.

I don’t know what it is, but I really enjoyed my time in Frankfurt. Despite the terrible weather where it seemed to rain more on than off, the area really seemed very liveable to me, and I think I really liked the thought of that. I wandered around many different parts, and even stopped in one of the many museums they had all around. I think the museum was one of modern art that had a exhibition showcasing the works of Takashi Murakami. Some of the works were amazing, with large statues built out of his drawings to be more than lifesize simply breathtaking, whilst a number of others slightly odd and definitely much more risque (NSFW). Funnily it wasn’t at all hard to remember that I was in Germany with so many attendants all over the place making it impossible to take any pictures. One even shouted at me in German as I leant forward to take a closer look at some figurines behind glass. I’m guessing she was saying to not touch it, but for that particular display, I couldn’t see how I would have been able to.

Of course, one of the great things about visiting Germany at this time of year is all the Christmas markets, crammed with loads of tourists and locals buying Christmas decorations and memorabilia and tucking into all the grilled sausages, fried potato mixtures and the must have Gluwein (mulled wine), perfect when surrounded by tons of people in the cold and needing just that little bit extra to keep you warm.

I have to thank my wonderful host, Martin for letting me crash at his awesome pad – something you’d never ever be able to afford in, or around London and its great location made it easy to get in and out of Frankfurt, and had an ever better night in Mainz with his girlfriend, Kerstin, at the much larger Christmas markets practicing what little German I knew and just enjoying the overall Christmas spirit. Check out the rest of the photos from the weekend here.