What to do at / near FRA?
 

Hi there,
Rather amazingly I got an award ticket (from UA) travelling on LH over the Christmas holiday. Whilst my outward flight is perfect, the return is not so good. ie, arrive into FRA at 16:10 and depart at 21:50.

As a *Gold I could just go sit in a lounge for five hours but that seems a bit of a waste of time.

Is it possible to leave the airport and get into Frankfurt (or somewhere else)? If so, I guess that there is a train or bus and what would you recommend doing? FYI, I'll be travelling on 3rd Jan.
[I'm almost certain to have checked luggage so there will be no chance of me trying to stand by for an earlier flight]

Many thanks,
Jason

Public transport gets you into the city within 10-15 minutes at a cheap price! So it might be worth considering for your layover. If you dont have a tourist guide like Lonely Planet I'd just walk around and take in the city! Nice place, dubbed "Mainhattan" for its skyscrapers!

I would recommend you take the S-Bahn into the city for about 3,-Euros. You can take any train from track 1 which will get you in just 12 minutes to the "Hauptbahnhof" (Main Station) or onward in another 3-4 minutes to the "Hauptwache.

From there you should walk a little bit through the pedestrian area "Zeil" and definitely to the old part of the city, the "Roemer". From the Hauptwache you get there by foot in just five minutes. Just follow the signs or ask any pedestrian. From there you can even see river "Main". There are also some nice pubs where you can stop for a quick beer or better some "Aeppelwoi"! Tastes great!

Enjoy your stay in Frankfurt, and please do leave the airport. You have plenty of time.
S-Bahn trains run at least every thirty minutes to the Airport, fifteen minutes and you're back at the Terminal!

Pay the extra 1+ euro and get the day ticket. That way you won't have to pay for the return at 3.2 euros. I saw a couple getting a ticket from the train patrol, for not having purchased a ticket. They cost about 30 euros if you get caught.

See also here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum32/HTML/002622.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum32/HTML/002765.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum32/HTML/002949.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum32/HTML/003023.html

The Römer itself is actually not really 'old'. The area was destroyed during WW2 and they rebuilt it in a somewhat stylized form.
http://www.altfrankfurt.com/Spezial/Krieg/Roemer/
has some pictures of the area.
It's definitely worth a stop though. Also check out St. Paul's Church which was the site of the first German National Assembly in 1848.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

There are three world class museum exhibits on at Frankfurt at the moment:

Andy Warhol's Time Capsules at the Museum fuer Moderne Kunst. (Andy Warhol kept every scrap of paper and other stuff, like Concorde spoons, that crossed his desk and stored it in cardboard boxes; this exhibit shows the contents of those boxes.)

Dream Factory at the Schirn (near the Roemer), an exhibit of early Soviet Russian poster art.

Nackt! at the Staedl

DanG