39 Best Sights in Frankfurt, Germany

Germany's first museum of cinematography, set in a historic villa on "museum row," offers visitors a glimpse at the history of film, with artifacts that include "magic lanterns" from the 1880s, costume drawings from Hollywood and German films, and multiple screens playing film clips. Interactive exhibits show how films are photographed, given sound, and edited, and let visitors play with lighting and animation. A theater in the basement screens every imaginable type of film, from historical to avant-garde to Star Wars.

Grosse Bockenheimer Strasse is the proper name of this pedestrian street, but it's nicknamed "Pig-Out Alley" because of its amazing choice of delicatessens, wine merchants, cafés, and restaurants, offering everything from crumbly cheeses and smoked fish to vintage wines and chocolate creams. Check the side streets for additional cafés and restaurants.

Bad Homburg's greatest attraction has long been the Kurpark, a 116 acre park in the heart of the Old Town, with more than 30 mineral springs and fountains, golf, tennis courts, restaurants, and playgrounds. Romans first used the springs, which were rediscovered and made famous in the 19th century. In addition to the popular (and highly salty) Elisabethenbrunnen spring, look for a Thai temple and a Russian chapel, mementos left by royal guests—King Chulalongkorn of Siam and Czar Nicholas II.

Three individual patrician buildings make up the Römer, Frankfurt's town hall. The mercantile-minded Frankfurt burghers used the complex for political and ceremonial purposes as well as for trade fairs and other commercial ventures. Its gabled facade with an ornate balcony is widely known as the city's official emblem. The most important events to take place here were the festivities celebrating the coronations of the Holy Roman emperors. The first was in 1562 in the glittering Kaisersaal (Imperial Hall), the last in 1792 to celebrate the election of the emperor Francis II, who would later be forced by Napoléon to abdicate. Unless official business is being conducted, you can see the impressive, full-length 19th-century portraits of the 52 emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, which line the walls of the reconstructed banquet hall, but you have to arrange a tour through a private local operator.

The important collection of fossils, animals, plants, and geological exhibits here is upstaged by the permanent dinosaur exhibit: it's the most extensive of its kind in all of Germany. The diplodocus dinosaur, imported from New York, is the only complete specimen of its kind in Europe. Many of the exhibits of prehistoric animals, including a series of dioramas, have been designed with children in mind, and there's a new section on biodiversity.

This is one of Germany's most important art collections, covering 700 years of paintings and sculpture, with a vast collection of paintings by Dürer, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Rubens, Monet, Renoir, and other masters. The downstairs annex features a large collection of works from contemporary artists, including a huge portrait of Goethe by Andy Warhol. The section on German expressionism is particularly strong, with representative works by the Frankfurt artist Max Beckmann and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. A free smartphone app with a built-in audio guide enhances the experience. There is also a café-restaurant, Holbein's.

Kaiser Wilhelm I traveled from Berlin for the gala opening of this opera house in 1880. Gutted in World War II, it remained a hollow shell for 40 years while controversy raged over its reconstruction. The exterior and lobby are faithful to the original, though the remainder of the building is more like a modern multipurpose hall. Although classical music and ballet performances are held here, most operas these days are staged at the Frankfurt Opera. Ninety-minute tours are offered on selected dates.

Containing hundreds of moss-covered gravestones, this cemetery was in use between the 13th- and mid-19th centuries and is one of the few reminders of prewar Jewish life in Frankfurt. Surprisingly, it suffered minimal vandalization in the Nazi era, even though its adjoining grand Börneplatz Synagogue was destroyed on Kristallnacht, in 1938. That space is now part of Museum Judengasse; ask the admissions desk for the key to open the vandal-proof steel gates to the cemetery. Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the banking family, who died in 1812, is buried here, along with some family members (the Rothschild mansion is now the main Jewish Museum). The wall around the cemetery is dotted with more than 1,000 small memorial plaques, each with the name of a Jewish Frankfurter and the concentration camp where they died. The newer Jewish cemetery on Rat-Beil-Strasse in the North End contains more than 800 graves dating from 1828 to 1929, including that of Nobel Prize winner Paul Ehrlich. Free tours are offered every other Sunday and by appointment.

The soaring vaulted ceilings make the former Gothic Karmeliterkirche (Carmelite Church) an ideal setting for huge Roman columns and other local and regional artifacts, including Stone Age and Neolithic tools and ancient papyrus documents. Modern wings display Greek, Roman, and Persian pottery, carvings, and more. The main cloister displays the largest religious fresco north of the Alps, a 16th-century representation of Christ's birth and death by Jörg Ratgeb. Adjacent buildings house the Institut für Stadtgeschichte (Institute of City History). The basement, called Die Schmiere (The Grease), is a satirical theater.

This is the center of Germany's stock and money market. The Börse was founded in 1585, but the present domed building dates from the 1870s. These days computerized networks and telephone systems have removed much of the drama from the dealers' floor, but it's still fun to visit the visitor gallery and watch the hectic activity. You must reserve your visit 24 hours in advance.

The German Architecture Museum is housed in a late-19th-century villa, which was converted in the early 1980s by the Cologne-based architect Oswald Mathias Ungers. He created five levels, including a simple basement space with a visible load-bearing structure, a walled complex on the ground floor, and a house-within-a-house on the third floor. With more than 180,000 drawings and plans, and 600 scale models, the museum features a wealth of documents on the history of architecture and hosts debates and exhibitions on its future, including sustainable urban design. A permanent exhibit features the most comprehensive collection of model panoramas in the history of German architecture.

A pedestrian walkway and the first suspension bridge in Europe, the Eiserner Steg connects the city center with Sachsenhausen aross the Main River and offers great views of the Frankfurt skyline. Boat excursions leave from here.

Built in the early 15th century, this tower, a block north of the Hauptwache, remains the finest example of the city's original 42 towers. It now contains a restaurant-bar.

This open-air museum, about an hour's walk through the woods along a well-marked path from the Römerkastell-Saalburg, is an open-air museum at Hessenpark, near Neu-Anspach. The museum presents a clear picture of the world in which 18th- and 19th-century Hessians lived, using 135 acres of rebuilt villages with houses, schools, and farms typical of the time. There's also an open-air theater with performances about Hessian life. The park, 15 km (9 miles) outside Bad Homburg in the direction of Usingen, is reached easily by public transportation from Frankfurt.

The house where Germany's most famous poet was born is furnished with many original pieces that belonged to his family, including manuscripts in his own hand. The original house, which was destroyed by Allied bombing, has been carefully rebuilt and restored. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) studied law and became a member of the bar in Frankfurt, but he was quickly drawn to writing, and in this house he eventually wrote the first version of his masterpiece, Faust. The adjoining museum contains works of art that inspired Goethe (he was an amateur painter) and works associated with his literary contemporaries.

A short bus ride from Bad Homburg takes you to the highest mountain in the Taunus, the 2,850-foot, eminently hikable Grosser Feldberg.

The attractive baroque building with a steeply sloping roof is the actual Hauptwache (Main Guardhouse), from which the square takes its name. The 1729 building was partly demolished to permit excavation for a vast underground shopping mall. It was then restored to its original appearance and is now considered the heart of the Frankfurt pedestrian shopping area. The outdoor patio of the building's restaurant-café is a popular people-watching spot on the Zeil.

This fascinating museum in a building in Römer Square that dates from the 1300s doubled in size with the addition of an adjoining wing in 2015. The city's oldest museum explores two millennia of Frankfurt history through a collection of some 630,000 objects, including what the city of the future might look like. Standout exhibits include scale models of historic Frankfurt at various periods, with every street, house, and church, plus photos of the devastation of World War II. The new wing blends in with the surrounding historic architecture with its gabled roof and carved sandstone sides, and offers both a café and city views from the top floor.

Höchst was once a porcelain-manufacturing town to rival Dresden and Vienna. Production ceased in the late 18th century, but was revived by an enterprising businessman in 1965. The Höchster Porzellan Manufaktur produces exquisite and expensive tableware, home decor items including vases and animal figurines, Christmas ornaments, and even cuff links and bottle stoppers. Designs are sleek and modern or replicas of 18th-century items. You can tour the workshop and shop at the store.

Re-opened in 2021 after a year-long renovation, this is one of the few museums in the world to exhibit a wide spectrum of the Christian Orthodox world of images, the art and ritual of icons from the 15th to the 20th century. More than 100 icons on display here are part of a collection that totals more than 1,000 artifacts. Admission is free on the last Saturday of the month.

The story of Frankfurt's Jewish community dating from the 1500s is told in the former Rothschild Palais, which overlooks the river Main. Prior to the Holocaust, Frankfurt's Jewish quarter was the second-largest in Germany (after Berlin), and the silver and gold household items on display are a testament to its prosperity. The museum contains a library of 5,000 books, a large photographic collection, and a documentation center. Be sure to check out the wall of ceremonial menorahs. The museum reopened in late 2020 after a five-year, $59 million renovation that included the addition of modern, light-filled annex for temporary exhibits, including focusing on anti-Semitism and current Jewish life in Germany. There's also a new restaurant, Flowdeli.

This modern stand-alone museum opened in 2018, replacing the Kindermuseum (Children's Museum) that was once part of the Historisches Museum. Interactive historical and cultural exhibits invite exploration (and it's free for children under 18).

Because the Holy Roman emperors were chosen and crowned here from the 16th to the 18th century, the church is known as the Kaiserdom (Imperial Cathedral), even though it isn't the seat of a bishop. Officially the Church of St. Bartholomew, but called simply "The Dom" by locals, it was built largely between the 13th and 15th centuries and survived World War II with most of its treasures intact. The most impressive exterior feature is the tall, red-sandstone tower (almost 300 feet high), which was added between 1415 and 1514. Climb it for a good view. The Dommuseum (Cathedral Museum) occupies the former Gothic cloister.

The peaceful, concealed courtyard of this Catholic church makes it hard to believe you're in the swirl of the shopping district. Dating from the 14th century, the late-Gothic church still has a fine relief over the south door and ornate rococo wood carvings and a magnificent organ inside.

The sculpture collection here represents 5,000 years of civilization and is considered one of the most important in Europe. Ancient Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, classicism, and the baroque are all represented. Some pieces are exhibited in the lovely gardens surrounding the historic brick villa with its signature turret tower. Don't miss out on the freshly baked German cakes in the museum café.

More than 30,000 decorative objects are exhibited in this modern white building designed by American star architect Richard Meier. Chairs and furnishings and medieval craftwork are some of the thematic sections you'll find on the same floor. The exhibits are mainly from Europe and Asia, including nine rooms from the historic Villa Metzler, spanning baroque to art deco.

This is the place for visiting the past and the future of communication technology, in an airy, modern glass building. Exhibitions on historic methods include mail coaches, a vast collection of stamps from many countries and eras, and ancient dial telephones, with their clunky switching equipment.

Austrian architect Hans Hollein designed this distinctive triangular building, shaped like a wedge of cake. The collection features more than 5,000 works from 1904 to today by such artists as Andy Warhol and Joseph Beuys. There are free guided tours in English on Saturday at 4 pm.

This museum, part of Goethe University, is set in a beautiful neoclassical villa along the strip of museums in Sachsenhausen and focuses on paintings from the 19th century and early 20th century. The artists are drawn mainly from the Rhine-Main region.

This branch of the Jewish Museum (the main museum reopened in 2020 after a major renovation) is built on the site of the Bornerplatz Synagogue, which was destroyed on Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) in 1938, and the foundations of mostly 18th-century buildings that were once part of the Jewish quarter, or Judengasse, dating from 1460.