Our big day in Frankfurt began with a pretty big breakfast at the hotel, complete with everything I think you could ever need to fuel your day. It was good to get a big meal in as this was our only full day in Frankfurt so knew it could be a long one. After we were done we made our way across the road to the station to where we knew the tourist bus stop was. We'd decided yesterday that it might be the best way to get around the city to the sights we wanted to see today. Lucky they supplied headphones to detail the commentary of the trip, so any OATs could be drowned out by the smooth sounds of recoded English tourist guide dude. Unfortunately the bus didn't leave as often as we'd hoped, and we had about half an hour to kill before the next one arrived. While we contemplated walking to our destinations, we decided to kill that half hour by having a look around the area close to the station. There are a lot of beggars and homeless people in Frankfurt, with someone on almost every corner, as we found out even more so in this half hour. It's a bit sad really. Finally our bus arrived and we jumped on, ready to take it to our first stop. There's a whole area of Frankfurt, known as Museumsufer Frankfurt, lined with some historic museums right along the bank of the Main River, and I was sort've keen to get to the Städel Museum to have a look, and knew from yesterday that the bus took us this way. On yesterday's bus tour, the recorded English tourist guide dude described that at the end of every August there is a massive festival celebrating these museums, with German food and drink stalls lining both banks of the Main River for a few days. At the time I thought it may not have been a coincidence that there looked to be a heap of stalls being set up, and that it was nearing the end of August. It turned out not to be a coincidence, with our actual human tour guide advising us that the workers today were setting up for the festival, which he said started tonight. This got me excited; perfect timing to be in Frankfurt for their food and drink festival! What was less exciting however was the fact the tour bus didn't realise that half the streets it was meant to drive down were closed to prepare for the event. Therefore by the time we reached our first stop, I reckon we could've been further away from the Städel Museum than we had been at the hotel. Oh well, at least we got to walk along the banks of the river and see some of the amazing stalls being set up for later tonight! We entered the museum and began looking at the galleries. What an experience. Not only did it have works of art on display from some of biggest artists ever, including Rembrandt, Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet and Andy Warhol, but it had works dating back to 1300! While it sounds a little nerdy, to see paintings from some of the most lauded artists in history, and to see works of art completed over 450 years before Australia was even settled, was pretty amazing. Once we arrived at the contemporary art section, that's where Daniel completely lost interest. To be fair I thought it'd happen a lot earlier than this, but to his credit he stuck at it. However, it is really difficult to defend art when you walk in and quite literally a canvas painted black is classified as it. I get your point Daniel. Unfortunately that inspired him. Once we left the gallery, every single thing that looked different, every tiny speck of graffiti, Daniel begun asking if that was art. If I said no, he'd question why, and after seeing black canvas, I couldn't answer, so there were a lot of "yes Daniel" that afternoon. When we left the gallery we were getting a little bit hungry, and headed to an old quarter of the town. Frankfurt is famous for its 'Ebbel-wei', which is an alcoholic apple cider, and a local dish called 'Handkäse mit Musik', which translates to 'hand-cheese with music'. Being in Frankfurt, I was keen to at least try something different, so we found an old apple-wine tavern that we knew would serve it in the old quarter. Once there, we sat outside and ordered three apple wines and three of the cheese dishes. The apple wine came out, and we all tried it. Daniel and Dad couldn't stand it, but I didn't actually mind it. It was sort've sour, but actually pretty refreshing, and I happily ordered a second once we'd finished that round. The cheese also came out, and looked pretty interesting. Basically it was a round, soft piece of cheese, soaked in vinegar, topped with raw onions, and the bartender placed it in front of us with a bit of a smirk. Apparently the vinegar and raw onions part is what supplies the music, albeit later on, in the dish name. We all tried it, and almost as quickly as the first bit was in Daniel's mouth, he'd had enough and abandoned it. I didn't find it too bad, although it certainly wouldn't be my first choice of food. Dad loved it, and even scooped up all of the vinegar from each of the three bowls once we were done, like it was soup. The best bit was when the bartender came to collect our bowls and asked how it was, and when Dad said he loved it, this bloke thought he was a freak - he couldn't stand it, didn't get the fuss about the dish at all! Once we were done, we headed off back towards the river, and stopped in at another little old pub for another drink - we decided this was probably the best way to work our way back into the city centre. We crossed the bridge across the river and back into town to look around some of the other impressive old buildings there. Unfortunately much of Frankfurt, including many of these old buildings, were heavily damaged from bombings in World War 2, which is sad because there are some really nice buildings in the city, but to me it just doesn't seen so impressive knowing they were rebuilt to look old just recently, as opposed to actually being really old. It's just another casualty of the war really. We worked our way into the more contemporary area of the city, and found a lofty place for a drink that looked over the city square, and kicked back for a break. We were all starting to get more tired as the big days caught up with us, and as it was getting late in the afternoon, we decided after this to head back to the hotel for a bit of a rest for a while, before heading back out later in the night to the festival for some dinner. We were also wary of the dodgy wifi in our hotel, which has quickly become our lifeline on this trip, and knew that we needed to find somewhere before the day was out to book our accommodation for Paris for the coming days. As we knew the pub just down the road had a pretty good connection, we headed down there to confirm our upcoming plans (I assure you it wasn't for their cool, refreshing ales). We ended up booking 3 nights in Paris, realising that we'd probably need a bit more time there than we have had here. As good as Frankfurt is, and no matter how much it might think it's New York (it's not), it surely is no Paris. After finalising our accommodation for Paris, we headed out on a stroll to the river, very much looking forward to seeing this festival and sampling some local German produce. As we got to the bridge, we saw lights lining the river all the way up both banks, and distant music of a riverside bar. It looked really beautiful and stoked our excitement for the event. But, when we got down there, we quickly found out that this event was a no-show. Yes all the lights were on, yes all the marquees were set up, yes there was music. But there was nobody home - a distinct lack of people and stalls was a sure-fired way to hit a roadblock on this festival and our plans. Turns out the festival didn't start till tomorrow night. What type of tourist bus was this? One that gave inferior information? One whose frequency was less than one an hour? One that didn't keep up to date with road closures? One that got local events completely wrong? Yes to all accounts? Well it must've been ****, and we completely agreed. Despite them giving us our day free, we only took the bus one stop today, and decided it'd be quicker walking everywhere, and abandoned the tour all together (we had already done the loop yesterday though). While we were a little disappointed that the festival wasn't on, it probably wasn't the worst thing as we were all a bit tired, so after walking along the banks of the river we headed back to the hotel and to bed. Our big day in Frankfurt, done!