Frankfurt

Römerberg, the Museumsufer and a Sachsenhausen evening in one day

A full day in Frankfurt covers the old town, the river museums and an apple wine tavern. Start at the Römerberg and the Kaiserdom, see the Paulskirche and the Goethe-Haus, ride the Main Tower lift, pick one museum on the Museumsufer, and finish in Sachsenhausen after sunset on the Eiserner Steg.

Morning. Start on the Römerberg, the sloping square framed by the stepped gables of the Römer town hall and the half-timbered Ostzeile. If the Kaisersaal upstairs is open, see its portraits of all the emperors. Walk through the Neue Altstadt along the Krönungsweg, the coronation route, to the red sandstone Kaiserdom St. Bartholomäus, where emperors were crowned from 1562; climb its tower if your legs allow.

Midday. Walk past the round Paulskirche, seat of Germany's first elected parliament in 1848, to the Goethe-Haus on the Großer Hirschgraben, where the writer was born in 1749. Lunch at the Kleinmarkthalle, then stroll the Fressgass toward the Alte Oper.

Afternoon. Ride the lift up the Main Tower for the skyline view, then cross the river on the Holbeinsteg to the Museumsufer. Pick one museum and do it properly: the Städel for paintings, the Liebieghaus for sculpture or the Museum Angewandte Kunst for design.

Evening. Walk east along the Sachsenhausen bank to the Eiserner Steg as the towers light up, then settle in at an apple wine tavern on Schweizer Straße or in the cobbled lanes of Alt-Sachsenhausen.

With a second day, add the dinosaurs of the Senckenberg museum and the glasshouses of the Palmengarten, or take the U4 to Bornheim for Berger Straße's cafés.

For the skyline from above, the Main Tower has an open-air viewing platform at about 200 metres, reached by lift after a security check; it closes in bad weather.

Grüne Soße, Handkäs mit Musik and Apfelwein from the Bembel

Frankfurt's local food is Hessian tavern cooking served with Apfelwein, a dry, sour cider poured from a stoneware Bembel. The dishes to order are Grüne Soße, a cold sauce of seven herbs with potatoes and eggs, and Handkäs mit Musik, a sharp sour-milk cheese in vinegar and onions. Sachsenhausen's taverns are the classic setting.

Frankfurt's table is plain Hessian cooking, and its spiritual home is the Apfelweinwirtschaft, the cider tavern. The drink is Apfelwein (Ebbelwoi or Äppler in dialect), dry and sour, poured from a grey stoneware jug called a Bembel into a ribbed glass, the Geripptes. Order it plain, or 'sauergespritzt' with a splash of sparkling water. A wreath of pine hanging outside means the house makes its own.

The signature dish is Grüne Soße, a cold sauce of seven herbs (borage, chervil, cress, parsley, salad burnet, sorrel and chives) blended with sour cream or yoghurt and served with boiled potatoes and halved eggs. Goethe is said to have loved it. Each spring a festival on the Roßmarkt crowns the best version.

The other test is Handkäs mit Musik, a small, sharp sour-milk cheese marinated in vinegar, oil and onions. The 'music' is a joke about what the onions do later. Meat eaters can order Rippchen mit Kraut, a cured pork chop with sauerkraut, or the original thin Frankfurter Würstchen, smoked pork sausages served in pairs.

For dessert, try a slice of Frankfurter Kranz, a ring cake layered with buttercream and covered in brittle, and at Christmas the marzipan Bethmännchen. The taverns of Sachsenhausen, such as those on Schweizer Straße, are the classic setting; locals also swear by the gardens of Bornheim and Seckbach.

Mainz, Rüdesheim, Heidelberg and the Taunus as easy day trips

Mainz is the closest day trip from Frankfurt, about 35 minutes on the S8, with Wiesbaden next door. Rüdesheim and the Rhine Gorge are about an hour by regional train, Heidelberg about an hour south, and the Taunus hills, Bad Homburg and the Roman Saalburg fort sit just north of the city.

The Rhine-Main region is built for day trips, and the S-Bahn and regional trains make most of them painless.

Mainz, across the Rhine and about 35 minutes away on the S8, has a red sandstone cathedral a thousand years old, a market square that fills on Saturday mornings and the Gutenberg Museum with its early printed Bibles. Wine taverns in the old town pour local Riesling and Silvaner. Neighbouring Wiesbaden, the Hessian capital, is a spa town of grand 19th-century villas and thermal baths.

Further west, the Rhine Gorge begins at Rüdesheim, about an hour by regional train. Take the cable car up through the vineyards to the Niederwald monument, then a boat downstream past castle-topped cliffs to the Loreley rock and St. Goar. This stretch of the valley is a UNESCO World Heritage site and best between May and October, when boats run frequently.

South, Heidelberg is about an hour by train. Its red ruined castle looks down on an old town of baroque streets, the Old Bridge and the Philosophers' Walk on the opposite bank, which gives the best view.

Closer still, the wooded Taunus hills rise north of the city. The S5 runs to Bad Homburg, with its spa park, and the Saalburg, a reconstructed Roman fort on the frontier of the empire, is a short bus ride beyond.