Frankfurt

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Parent Category: Travel Over There

Category: 2014 - Gap Year

Created: Saturday, 06 September 2014 14:04

We came to Germany to take part in an English Language Immersion program run by Diverbo which was taking place near Frankfurt. We arrived in Frankfurt on the Friday and stayed at Paulies Hotel next door to the program meeting point.

Frankfurt is a muddle of restored 19th century, ageing 20^th century, and 21^st century architecture, making for a walking experience that is both beauteous and hideous at the same time.

I like visiting museums, I find that they are a good place to begin understanding any culture you are visiting, as they display the history of the world us understood and respected by that culture at large, and the Senckenberg is an excellent example of how Natural History Museums should be. It has several floors with multiple galleries, briefly covering Earth’s formation and geologic history; displays of plant, animal and human evolution; displays of dinosaur fossils, amphibians, insects, arachnids, mammals, reptiles. The brevity of each display allows for the Senckenberg to have comprehensive coverage of the epochs of our planet, and some of the specimens are exquisite, making it well worth the visit.

In the afternoon, we visited the Städel Museum, which while not one of the most famous art museums, it was definitely one of the best planned and designed. There are four floors; the ground floor is for current contemporary art projects while the lower level is for contemporary art from 1945 onwards; The 1^st upper level contains art from 1800-1945, and the 2^nd upper level has pieces from 1300-1800. The upper levels are divided into numbered rooms that are curated in such a way as to guide you through time as well as specific artistic movements. The Städel has a great array of art on display on the upper floors but it never feels like you bloated or overloaded. This is because of the variety of artists and movements on display give you enough variety that you do not feel that you seeing the same piece repeatedly thus keeping you engaged in the experience. The contemporary exhibition on the lower floor, while also numbered, is a partitioned space that you weave and wander through. I’m not a fan of contemporary art and a great many of the displays failed to engage me, but it is still a worthy display.

After Diverbo, we caught the train North to Bremen, where a friend of mine was living and studying.

Other Articles from Germany

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Diverbo 

Bremen

Aschaffenburg

Three German Castles 

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