5 Best Sights in City Center, Frankfurt

Built in the early 15th century, this tower, a block north of the Hauptwache, remains the finest example of the city's original 42 towers. It now contains a restaurant-bar.

Containing hundreds of moss-covered gravestones, this cemetery was in use between the 13th- and mid-19th centuries and is one of the few reminders of prewar Jewish life in Frankfurt. Surprisingly, it suffered minimal vandalization in the Nazi era, even though its adjoining grand Börneplatz Synagogue was destroyed on Kristallnacht, in 1938. That space is now part of Museum Judengasse; ask the admissions desk for the key to open the vandal-proof steel gates to the cemetery. Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of the banking family, who died in 1812, is buried here, along with some family members (the Rothschild mansion is now the main Jewish Museum). The wall around the cemetery is dotted with more than 1,000 small memorial plaques, each with the name of a Jewish Frankfurter and the concentration camp where they died. Free tours are offered every other Sunday (and by appointment). The newer Jewish cemetery on Rat-Beil-Strasse in the North End contains more than 800 graves dating from 1828 to 1929, including that of Nobel Prize winner Paul Ehrlich.

This is the center of Germany's stock and money market. The Börse was founded in 1585, but the present domed building dates from the 1870s. These days computerized networks and telephone systems have removed much of the drama from the dealers' floor, but it's still fun to visit the visitor gallery and watch the hectic activity. You must reserve your visit online in advance.

The story of Frankfurt's Jewish community dating from the 1500s is told in the former Rothschild Palais, which overlooks the river Main. Prior to the Holocaust, Frankfurt's Jewish quarter was the second-largest in Germany (after Berlin), and the silver and gold household items on display are a testament to its prosperity. The museum contains a library of 5,000 books, a large photographic collection, and a documentation center. Be sure to check out the wall of ceremonial menorahs. The museum reopened in 2020 after a five-year, $59 million renovation that included the addition of modern, light-filled annex for temporary exhibits, including focusing on anti-Semitism and current Jewish life in Germany. There's also a new restaurant, Flowdeli.

This branch of the Jewish Museum is built on the site of the Bornerplatz Synagogue, which was destroyed on Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass) in 1938, and includes the foundations of mostly 18th-century buildings that were once part of the Jewish quarter, or Judengasse, dating from 1460.