Frankfurt am Main

Frankfurt is the German city everyone passes through and almost nobody stops in — Germany's busiest airport sits 12km from the center — and the dismissal ("Bankfurt," a finance office park with a Christmas market) is the one thing locals will argue with you about. Read more

Top SightsNeighborhoodsHistory & CulturePracticalMust-EatsSample Days

All24Food & Drink8Culture11Outdoors2Shopping3

Römerberg

sight·$·must-do

The one square that explains Frankfurt: coronations, a burned old town, and a rebuilt one, with the banking skyline photobombing every shot.

Neighborhood: Altstadt-Römerberg

Museumsufer (Schaumainkai)

sight·$·★ 4.6 (301)·must-do

A free riverside walk with a dozen museums on one side and the German skyline on the other. Do it at sunset.

Neighborhood: Sachsenhausen

Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof

sight·$·★ 3.7 (10,142)·must-do

The reason the whole neighborhood exists — Europe's largest station in 1888, three vast iron halls, and a bronze Atlas over the door most people never look up at.

Neighborhood: Bahnhofsviertel

Holzhausenschlösschen

sight·$·★ 4.7 (105)·must-do

A 1720s moated Baroque manor hidden inside a Gründerzeit neighborhood — and one of Frankfurt's loveliest small concert rooms.

Neighborhood: Nordend

Neue Altstadt (DomRömer-Quartier)

sight·$·★ 4.7 (364)·must-do

A city rebuilding its own bombed heart in the 2010s — read it as architecture, as politics, or just as the prettiest ten minutes of walking in Frankfurt.

Neighborhood: Altstadt-Römerberg

IG-Farben-Haus & Campus Westend

sight·$·★ 4.4 (88)·must-do

The most consequential building in Frankfurt: a modernist masterpiece, a Nazi-era corporate headquarters, an American army HQ and a university, all the same walls — and it costs nothing to walk in.

Neighborhood: Westend

Kaiserdom St. Bartholomäus

sight·$·★ 4.6 (8,255)·must-do

Ten emperors were crowned here, and for €3 you get the best-value skyline view in the city — if your knees are up to 328 steps.

Neighborhood: Altstadt-Römerberg

Historisches Museum Frankfurt

museum·$·★ 4.3 (2,747)·must-do

The Treuner brothers' 1927 model of the vanished old town — the single object that makes sense of everything else you'll walk past out there.

Neighborhood: Altstadt-Römerberg

Städel Museum

museum·$$·★ 4.6 (12,826)·must-do

The best collection in Germany outside Berlin and Munich, and the only Frankfurt sight that would justify the trip on its own.

Neighborhood: Sachsenhausen

Senckenberg Naturmuseum

museum·$·★ 4.6 (4,565)·must-do

The largest dinosaur display in Germany, plus an Edmontosaurus with its skin fossilised — for €10, in a building that has barely changed since 1907.

Neighborhood: Westend

Museum Judengasse & Neuer Börneplatz Memorial

museum·$·★ 4.6 (612)·must-do

Real stone from Europe's oldest ghetto below, and 12,000 names on a wall above. The most serious half-hour in the Altstadt.

Neighborhood: Altstadt-Römerberg

Kleinmarkthalle

market·$·★ 4.6 (16,193)·must-do

The best-value eating in central Frankfurt, and the only Altstadt address where you're outnumbered by people buying dinner rather than photographing it.

Neighborhood: Altstadt-Römerberg

Wochenmarkt Friedberger Platz

market·$·★ 4.4 (161)·must-do

Frankfurt's biggest street party is a Friday farmers market — no ticket, no venue, just a square full of people from 5pm.

Neighborhood: Nordend

Palmengarten

park·$·★ 4.7 (23,526)·must-do

A 155-year-old botanical garden whose founding collection was bought off a dispossessed duke — and, for €9, the most rewarding half-day in the Westend in any weather.

Neighborhood: Westend

Grüneburgpark

park·$·★ 4.7 (4,265)·must-do

Twenty-nine hectares of Rothschild parkland gone public — the Westend's living room, and the best free thing in the district.

Neighborhood: Westend

Zum Gemalten Haus

restaurant·$·★ 4.3 (4,623)·must-do

Seventy-five-year-old murals, a Bembel on the table, and strangers on the bench next to you. The most complete version of the Frankfurt tavern.

Neighborhood: Sachsenhausen

Rausch

restaurant·$$$$·★ 4.9 (68)·must-do

Two Michelin stars awarded on the restaurant's first-ever appearance in the guide — Frankfurt's most talked-about opening, run by the chef and not by a group.

Neighborhood: Westend

Dominion Food Revolution

restaurant·$·★ 4.8 (1,472)·must-do

The one genuinely cheap, genuinely good meal in the Westend — and simultaneously vegan, kosher and halal, which almost nowhere else in Frankfurt manages.

Neighborhood: Westend

Blumen

restaurant·$$$$·★ 4.9 (383)·must-do

Frankfurt's best argument that serious cooking doesn't need a tablecloth — 18 seats, no menu, and vegetables treated as the main event.

Neighborhood: Nordend

Umbra

restaurant·$$$·★ 4.4 (264)·must-do

Named Frankfurt's best Thai by the city's own restaurant guide — and one of very few Westend restaurants where a good dinner doesn't start at €100 a head.

Neighborhood: Westend

Lafleur

restaurant·$$$$·★ 4.7 (504)·must-do

The rare two-star kitchen where the vegan tasting menu is not a concession but a co-equal, twelve-year-old discipline — and the lunch menus make it genuinely reachable.

Neighborhood: Westend

Café Laumer

cafe·$$·★ 4.4 (1,013)·must-do

The Frankfurt School's canteen, still serving its own pastry under crystal chandeliers — and a hidden garden terrace that is one of the best sitting-outside spots in the district.

Neighborhood: Westend

Yaldy

bar·$$·★ 4.5 (676)·must-do

The rare bar that is genuinely excellent at drinks and at food — a Michelin Cocktail Award and a Bib Gourmand in the same room. Book it.

Neighborhood: Bahnhofsviertel

Yok Yok City Kiosk

shop·$·★ 4.8 (131)·must-do

300-plus beers, a €3 bottle, and the whole neighborhood standing on the pavement outside drinking them. The cheapest and truest hour you'll spend here.

Neighborhood: Bahnhofsviertel