5 Days in Frankfurt — August 2026

Before moving back to Taiwan, I'm taking a 38-day solo trip around Europe, hopping between cities. Frankfurt was the first stop — my sister works there, so I stayed at her place for the trip. I wasn't expecting much from the city, but I ended up having a great time. Here are some of my favorite spots.

 

Museum of Applied Arts

The museum has an extensive collection of everyday objects — chairs, tools, tables, kitchenware, and more.

Vitsœ 620 Chair. These are the lounge chairs that become a sofa, hand-made by Vitsœ since 1962. Finally getting to see them in person.

One room that stood out was the Dieter Rams room on the second floor, filled with objects he designed — radios, record players, and cameras for Braun, plus shelving and sofas for Vitsœ. Seeing this much of his work in one place is pretty amazing — worth a visit if you're a fan.

 

Braun T 1000.

The building itself is worth slowing down for too — the galleries are arranged around a quiet courtyard, so you get natural light and a breather between rooms instead of one long hallway of glass cases.

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Städel Museum

The museum has a clever bit of design in its backyard. From street level, you can't tell what the round shapes scattered across the lawn are — but head down to the lower level and it clicks: they're skylights, pulling sunlight into what would otherwise be a windowless basement. Each one has its own blind to keep the light from getting too harsh.

I spent longer looking at the skylights than the actual collection upstairs — sometimes the building is the best exhibit.

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Jesuit Church of St. Ignatius

A church that feels solemn the moment you walk in. The windows look hand-made, and the whole building is cast in concrete. The window right above the altar gives the space a quiet, scenic quality.

I got lucky — an older man was playing the pipe organ while I was there. With the organ playing and no one else around, it felt less like sightseeing and more like stumbling into something private.

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BraunSammlung

A space dedicated to the full Braun product archive. You can trace how the company started with radios, moved into Dieter Rams's era of design, and on to more modern products like hair dryers and clocks. Still, I was mainly there for the Rams-era pieces.

The Wall Hi-Fi System.

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Coffee & Cafés

I also stopped at a few coffee shops along the way — here are the ones worth sharing.

 

| Cubus Coffee

I found this place through La Marzocco's official Instagram. The cafe sits inside a park, housed in a small box-like structure — the door slides open to one side. The coffee's good too.

 

| Ordinary Café

This one has a minimal design with just a handful of seats. They mainly serve pour-overs.

 

| eins zwei

This was my favorite cafe of the trip. The space is full of steel details, and they serve out of cups made by the pottery studio next door.

 

| Viola Beuscher

This is the pottery studio next door to eins zwei. I'd been following it for a while and really wanted to visit in person — it's only open to the public on Fridays, 4-7pm.

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Subway Stations

Every subway station has its own character. The elevator shaft at Festhalle/Messe is a spiraling glass-and-steel structure — looking straight up through it feels like peering through a kaleidoscope. I ended up riding it twice just to look again.

Not sure where I took this one...

These were taken in Bockenheimer Warte stop.

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Street Art

Street art is everywhere around the city. A lot of it is minimal — just a few lines and a dot — always signed "peng" in the corner. My sister told me it's all the work of Peng, who's something of a local celebrity.

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Around the City

A few shots from wandering around the city — it's noticeably clean.

Even the side streets away from downtown look freshly swept.

Crazy to see vines covering an entire building.

Some buildings have sliding metal shutters mounted on exterior rails, right in front of the windows.

A vending machine selling toys, bolted straight onto the wall of a building — no shop attached, just there.

Europaturm (Frankfurt TV Tower), glimpsed above the rooftops during a walk through the neighborhood.

This classic BMW is always parked in my sister's neighborhood — I never once saw anyone drive it, just sitting there looking sharp.

Some pictures from walking along the Main — the river that gives Frankfurt am Main its name.

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Leaving Frankfurt

Five days in and it was already time to head out — caught this on the way through Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof before catching my train to the next city.

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I dropped all these spots into a Google Maps list if you want to visit them yourself — it also has a few places I didn't get a chance to check out this time, so take a look.

 

Hope you like Frankfurt! ◡̈