A Visit to Frankfurt - Part 8: Zeil (4 pictures)

The Zeil street pedestrian shopping section is one of the main shopping districts in Frankfurt.  The street is completely closed to vehicle traffic for the most part and is full of several large buildings containing multi-story shopping malls or large retailers like H&M, C&A, Adidas, and a whole lot more. 

My favorite places were the Galeria Kaufhof which is full of high-end goods, from chocolates to clothes, to just about anything else; and the My Zeil shopping mall which has a grocery store in the basement and the fabulous curved roof you see in the picture below.  This is the top floor (6th if I remember right) and it's mostly full of places to eat, plus an auction house and a Saturn electronics store.  At the far end in the picture is a whole glass wall that overlooks the Zeil, with a few of the windows open when the weather is nice (with protective nets).  If you have been wandering around for a while you can grab a seat and watch the crowds below or look out over the Frankfurt skyline.

The top floor of the My Zeil shopping center.

 More pictures after the break.  Don't forget to click on an image to see a larger version.



 The picture below is from one of the open windows at the top of My Zeil, with my camera lens pushed through a hole in the lens.  This is looking East, and you can see that the Zeil has tree's planted down the middle, and that small roof you can see is a cafe where you can hang out as well.  Further down just at very end is a large open square as well.

Looking East down the Zeil

 Just next to the Galeria Kaufhof (the white building at the edge of the photo) is another shopping center who's name I forgot.  But if you go all the way to the top there is an observation deck that you can do up to and look out from.  This is looking Southwest down the Rossmarkt, across the Hauptwache square.  The small old building to the right of the church (the Katharinenkirche) is the actual Hauptwache, which was an old jail that has now been converted into a restaurant.

Strangely enough, the thing I found most impressive is that there is a giant U-Bahn (subway) station that underlies pretty much that entire square, and which has direct access into stores like the Galeria Kaufhof.

Looking down the Rossmarkt, over the Hauptwache

 And like a lot of places in Europe, there are street musicians.  The guy below was REALLY impressive.  He was a native American of some type (I'm guessing South American) and what he would do is have some recorded music playing in the background, and then switch among all of those instruments at his feet (which are all different wind instruments if I remember right, mostly different types of flutes) and play those live over the background music.  He had a buddy selling CD's he had recorded and he was actually really good.

A street performer and his instruments

If you go to Frankfurt, make sure you take the time to go to the Zeil.  Even if you don't want to shop much, there is still a bunch to look at and places to eat, drink, and relax.  And if you head down the street behind the street musician to the left, at the end of that block there is a very nice bakery if you are craving some sweets.  :)