Museumsuferfest

One thing I love about Germany is all of the festivals. Each neighbourhood will have a street fest once a year, plus there are festivals for holidays, communities and other random things. My favourite festival is the Museumsuferfest. Most of the museums in Frankfurt are along the south bank of the Main river. For a weekend in late August they celebrate with the biggest festival of the year. Both sides of the river downtown are lined with stalls selling food, drink, handicrafts and other items. The museums are open late and it is only 7 euros to buy a button which gets you into all the museums all weekend.

I made it to 3 museums this year. I went to the Staedel (fine art), Historical Museum and the Architecture Museum. The latter was the only new one for me. While a lot of it was not of any interest, they had one fascinating exhibit. It was called "Von Urhütte zum Wolkenkratzer," meaning from primitive hut to skyscraper. There were little windows all around the room, each one looking into a small model. The models chose different civilizations and eras to illustrate the chronological progression from Neanderthal huts to modern Frankfurt skyscrapers. I found this really fascinating. It is a bit funny to see the Roman and Egyptian monumental buildings, and then almost go backwards to medieval structures, until the grand cathedrals. 

The Roman scale model

In the basement of the Architecture Museum they had a children's exhibit: LEGO!

The museums are only half of the Museumsuferfest, the other half I think is the food. I had crepes, pastries, sausages, paella, though somehow missed out on the chocolate popcorn. I am not quite sure how that happened, as it was clearly a mistake. 

Teresa and I in between snacks

Now two weeks after, there is another festival. This afternoon I am going to check out the Leipziger Straßenfest. This is one of the little neighbourhood festivals, like the Schweizerplatzfest in the spring. But there will still be food, drinks and all kinds of stalls, and hopefully chocolate popcorn!