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In the heart of Europe

Behind all the commercial goings-on, Germany has a leisurely side to it as well, discovers Vinay Kumar

THE GERMAN MARVELS There is more to Germany than skyscrapers and precision engineering

Whenever you think of Germany, you think of Mercedes Benz, BMW and Volkswagen cars, Lufthansa planes, high speed Inter City Express (ICE) trains, Munich Olympic Games, and gleaming modern airports. Germany and its leading cities such as Frankfurt, Mu nich, Cologne, Berlin and Hamburg often conjure up images of skyscrapers and precision engineering.

Germany is a lot more than all this, and all of its 16 federal states and tourism boards are keen to lure tourists from Asia, in particular from India, to their country dotted with tourist attractions and home to thousands of museums, art galleries, palaces, golf courses and castles; a country where airports are more of a shoppers’ delight than merely bustling transport hubs. A flight to Frankfurt or Munich is a little over seven hours from any of the major cities of India.

If Frankfurt on the River Main is Germany’s city of commerce and finance and boasts skyscrapers, Hamburg prides itself as Germany’s number one foreign trading and logistics centre. By flight, Hamburg, the city of greens, is just an hour away from Frankfurt. The city does not have a skyscraper and has more parks and trees than any other city in Germany. It has three state theatres, 30 private theatres, around 200 galleries, 40 museums and most-visited musicals. Tourism Board officials inform us that the city clocks 105 million day visitors every year and also is home to 99 consulates, making it the third largest concentration of consulates in the world.

A leisurely drive of about 45 minutes takes us from the airport to the city centre where our hotel is located, just a small walk away from the Alster Lake in the middle of the city. Our guide takes us on a walk through the city centre talking about parks and green spaces, water and woods that make up almost half the city.

It is very rare to find 126 parks spread over 3,000 hectares in a city which also has 2,485 bridges more than Amsterdam and Venice put together. You can also take the ‘hop-on, hop off’ double decker buses from the city centre which will take you for a city tour, lasting for nearly 100 minutes. And the harbour tour over River Elbe will complete the sightseeing trip.

Walk your way through the city centre, meandering through cobbled streets where some of the most fashionable stores and malls like Europa and Clockhouse are located. Or you can walk through the sprawling park and land at Grand Elysee, a luxurious hotel in Hamburg. The hotel has an art gallery, promoted by the owner’s wife Christa Block. If you like a modern city where 200-metre high buildings house banks, and the glass façades of high rises impart a gleaming look, Frankfurt is the city to be in. It is the biggest and busiest airport in Germany, where a hangar for the soon-to-be put in service double decker superjumbo A-380 is being constructed. Frankfurt is also a city of contrasts, as it is here you can also find large public parklands, landscaped in ‘jardin-anglais’ style, dotted with beautiful paths, vast meadows and a Korean garden. You can also hire a lakeside villa for special events, and the zoo is spread over some 13 hectares, featuring the exotic and nocturnal animal exhibits. It is also the city of open air events that take place across the year.

For shoppers, Hauptwache in the middle of the city is where the Zeil shopping promenade starts, dotted with big department stores and a large variety of shops. For art lovers, the city has the Jewish Museum, Museum of Archaeology, German Film Museum, and even a Money Museum of Deustche Bundesbank apart from those for the Applied Arts and Natural History. The head office of the State Bank of Hesse and Thringia features the city’s first publicly accessible observation platform 200 metres high which was thrown open seven years ago.

Frankfurt along the River Main offers a variety of sightseeing destinations, featuring historic buildings and providing a great view of the city skyline. Seeing his passengers as hailing from India, our friendly cab driver informs us that the Mercedes taxi is owned by a Sikh gentleman who drives it by day, while he takes the wheel by night. He appears well informed about our Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who recently visited Germany for the G-8 summit. Surprised, we see a new, friendly face in one of the most industrialised nations of the world. Perhaps, it is this tourist-friendly image which Germany is trying to promote.

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