Why Frankfurt needs a local guide
Frankfurt gets written off as a banking city. This is lazy. Sachsenhausen's Apfelwein taverns are packed every night with locals eating Handkäs mit Musik and Grüne Soße. The Bahnhofsviertel went from red-light district to the best cocktail bar strip in Germany in about ten years. The Kleinmarkthalle is a food market that has not yet been ruined by Instagram.
Frankfurt sees over 5 million visitors a year, and most of them are here for a layover or a trade fair. They see the skyline, maybe walk to the Römerberg, and fly out. They never sit in an Apfelwein tavern in Sachsenhausen where the Bembel arrives at the table without you asking and the Handkäs mit Musik smells like it should not be edible but absolutely is. To become a tour guide in Frankfurt means proving that this city has a soul underneath the glass towers. The Bahnhofsviertel transformation alone is a story worth telling — Münchener Strasse went from one of the roughest blocks in Germany to a street where you can get a perfect Negroni next to a gallery showing contemporary photography. The Kleinmarkthalle on a Saturday morning is Frankfurt at its most honest: Turkish grandmothers buying olives next to finance workers picking up organic cheese. Become a tour guide in Frankfurt and you will spend your time dismantling one of the laziest cliches in European tourism. This is a Grüne Soße city, a river promenade city, a Bahnhofsviertel cocktail city. Become a tour guide in Frankfurt and let people see it.