Frankfurt Airport is the largest airport in Germany, the fourth largest in Europe. It’s a good place to spot planes and indulge in a bit of travel yearning.

Frankfurt Airport is the largest airport in Germany, the fourth largest in Europe. It’s a good place to spot planes and indulge in a bit of travel yearning.


There is a small explanation needed how I got from “Waxy” to an Ireland rugby jersey. Only a small one, really.
Frankfurt am Main has quite a few Irish pubs and we tried out a few but Waxy’s is the one we go to when we want to watch a rugby match. It hasn’t got as many screens as O’Reilly’s at the station, but it’s not as cramped as Mac Gowan’s on the Zeil, Frankfurt’s shopping street. And in the Anglo-Irish Pub in Sachsenhausen you sometimes have to argue with the English football fans if an interesting football game is on. Besides – Waxy’s has the easiest for parking for out-of-towners like us.
With Ireland doing well in this year’s Six Nations, Waxy’s was the first association that came to mind when I heard today’s prompt
That was the first picture I saw of this … this … whatsit. What is it? A vomiting lizzard? Or did I read the fountain in the wrong direction and this was a drinking green pig with a large tail? What about the wings? A dragon whelp? I don’t know that I was thinking except that – “This is really odd!!”
As we went more often to Frankfurt we kept seeing more pictures of the creature.
And not just pictures, sculptures as well.
And after a while we started to understand. This was the Frankfurt Grüngürteltier or literally, the Green Belt Creature. The name is pun – green belt is literally Grüngürtel but a Gürteltier is the name of an armadillo in German. It is used as a signpost for the 68km long walking path encircling the city.
This is for another one of Cee’s guest challenges.
Driving to Frankfurt one passes under the flight corridor of the airport and I try to have my camera ready (not while I’m at the steering wheel, of course). Sometimes I get lucky.

Wedged between the river Main and a mixed neighbourhood of houses, workshops and stores, situated next to the nightclub district of Frankfurt is a curious piece of urban enclave. It’s as if it has been forgotten by the urban planning department. An old and run-down collection of garden plots, many of the allotments are overgrown and look neglected, quite different to the neat and orderly Schrebergärten that are so characteristic for German weekend gardeners. Yet there are signs that many of the allotments are in use; swings and slides bear witness of playing children, brick and metal barbecues are kept clean for the next party, some of the seemingly dilapidated huts feature neat stoops with loveseats, and one can glimpse worn but well-kept tools under rusty awnings.
The paths through this jungle are overgrown, and curvy, it feels like being in a maze. Many of the allotments seem to have no direct access to any road. Surprisingly, in between the plots are narrow waterways which are overgrown, and with an occasional plank forming a makeshift bridge.
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Water, Water Everywhere and of course, also linked to Jez’ Water, Water Everywhere
Last weekend we met near a subway station in Frankfurt (technically it’s the S-Bahn but practically it is an underground station). The colourful mural immediately attracted me to come closer.




Apologies to the BeeGees for the title.