Frankfurt on Foot tour review

As many of you know, one of the friendliest and most consistent participants in the Germany forum, Ms. Jo, also owns a walking tour company in Frankfurt. I had the opportunity to meet Jo this summer and had two lovely meals and long conversations with her, along with some extra wanders around Frankfurt. I'll talk more about that in a Trip Report. I also took her company's tour, guided that day by her husband Dave.
I took the tour on June 25th, 2018, and between the rest of my vacation and re-entry into real life after a month away, I kept putting off a review. (Sorry Jo!). But the tour and the tour company owners more than deserve recognition for the quality of their tour program and the great, relaxed tour delivery from David. First, the tour itinerary. It was 4 hours packed full of interesting stops, many of them unique to FoF. My two favorite stops were the Carmelite cloister with its frescoes from the 1500s and the Frankfurt city model at the city planning office.
The cloister is a very under-visited site. It has been restored and some of the frescoes are fully restored, others less so. There are also some interesting Roman artifacts in the hallways around the cloister. Dave did a great job explaining some of the stories in the frescoes and the history of the building. But a hidden benefit of this particular stop is access to the clean, underused toilets at a perfect time during the tour. They are after the admission desk, so they’re available only once you’ve paid the fee (included in the tour). Excellent planning, FoF!
I was very intrigued by the 3-D city model, used by city planners to discuss development requests but fascinating for us tourists to place what we’ve seen in context of the overall city. I also was interested to discover that the Jewish Museum, subject of a lengthy tour I’d taken earlier that week, was part of the same building and had an entrance from inside the city planning building through an original (restored) portion of the Jewish Ghetto. The earlier guide had failed to point that out, as we had gone through the main entrance of what I thought was a stand-alone museum building.
These two sites are unique to FoF’s daily tours. We also covered a lot of other tour companies’ standard stops (Römerplatz, Kleinmarkthalle, etc.) but I felt I learned a unique historical or contemporary tidbit at each stop, which is why I take walking tours. At the Römerplatz, he shared some of the controversy about the recent rebuilding of a section of the medieval city that was obliterated during the war. I’d read a bit about this pre-arrival, and enjoyed hearing an on-the-ground perspective. At the Kleinmarkthalle, a daily market, he wasn’t shy about sharing his opinions on where to get good snacks and why. That was also a well-timed bio and rest break over lunch.
Second, tour delivery. Dave is a wise-cracking, self-deprecating American vet who has lived in Frankfurt for nearly two decades. This was a breath of fresh air after some very earnest and detailed walking tours I’d taken in German over the prior few days. I’m a history geek, but after 3.5 hours shuffling around a single city block listening to the history of Jews in Frankfurt over the last millennium, I was a bit tapped out. Or the detailed tour of Marburg, during which the tour guide explained the evolution of half-timbered house architecture over 500 years. This tour had lots of walking and many separate sights. Dave knows way more about Frankfurt than he could share in 4 hours, but I felt he selected key portions of that knowledge to share with us and kept us moving.
I loved the tour for both its thoughtfully selected and presented itinerary and its delivery. I highly recommend it to anyone who has a day in Frankfurt. Frankfurt on Foot also offers custom tours, and Jo is very happy to share tips for those with a longer stay. I used her ideas for each of my five days in the area and was extremely happy with my stay.