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Frankfurt part 3, outside the centre

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...Continued from part two Walls and park The city centre is surrounded on three sides by a strip of parkland (and the river on the south side). This is where the city wall and defenses once surrounded the city. As far as I know, only one tower and a short bit of wall remains. An Egyptian goose in the park. They are an invasive species, and not welcome... Unlike the Canadian ones? The Euro-Skulptur, erected by the  European Central Bank when the Euro was introduced. The bank was sited in the adjacent building until 2015.  The Alte Oper (Old Opera House) is also in this band round the city. The River The River Main forms the southern bounder of the old city. This is taken from the Altebrücke (Old Bridge). The Dom is on the right. The iron footbridge is the Eiserner Steg, which means iron foot bridge. Another view of the Eiserner Steg, with a working boat, Xeryus, passing underneath. This was taken from the south bank, looking to the skyscrapers of the city centre. The south ban...

Frankfurt part 2, Christopher Street Day

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... Continued from part one Christopher Street Day (CSD) is what in the UK is know better a Gay Pride. It remembers the  Stonewall riots that took place on New York City's Christopher Street in the district of Greenwich Village on June 28, 1969. The following years CSD parades were held in the US, but it is, I think, only Germany and Switzerland that still use that term. The night before, one of the skyscrapers in rainbow colours. The New Old City It was busy! The Parade Down by the river A DJ has her set-up on the back of a bike. A drag act on stage singing... not well as I recall. It was heaving, and I could not see her face, or much of her at all! Arguably drag is more about stage presence than singing ability, and she had that. This guy was pretty good - channelling Marc Almond. Someone to the left signing. These guys were pretty good too, but kept well to the back of the stage, so hard to actually see anything. Continued in part three...

Frankfurt part 1, city centre

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Frankfurt is the fifth biggest city in Germany, with a population around three-quarters of a million. It stands on the river Main, about 13 miles from where the river joins the Rhine. The city was devastated during the war (as this photo on Wiki shows), but a lot of the rebuilding has recreated the buildings as they were. So we begin at the Neue Altstadt - the New Old City! This is the Paulskirche. This is considered the home of German democracy, the site of the first democratically elected parliament for all of Germany. It was the first building rebuilt after the war. The interior. This is upstairs; no longer used as a church. Ground floor features an eliptic wall with a curious mural on it,  "The Procession of the People's Representatives". Wiki tells me: " it depicts the parliamentarians in relation to the people. While the people  —colorful, allegorical figures  —remain in the foreground, their representatives, dressed in monochrome gray and black, march past be...