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City

Hessen

Frankfurt's museum riverbank, the Brothers Grimm and the documenta in Kassel.

2 museums
All museums ↓
📷 Jochen Teufel · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Hesse lies in the heart of Germany. Frankfurt is a city of banks and books, and Kassel hosts the documenta, one of the world's biggest art exhibitions, every five years.

Museums in Hessen

Look inside, then buy your ticket on the museum’s own website.

The story of Hessen

In Frankfurt, more than thirty museums line both banks of the river Main. The Städel shows 700 years of European art, from Botticelli and Vermeer to Picasso, and Goethe's family home stands in the old centre. North of Frankfurt, the Messel Pit is a UNESCO site full of 47-million-year-old fossils, many of them shown at the Senckenberg museum. In Kassel, the Grimmwelt tells the story of the Brothers Grimm, and the hillside park of Wilhelmshöhe, with its giant Hercules statue and water cascades, is on the UNESCO list too. Darmstadt has the Art Nouveau artists' colony of the Mathildenhöhe. Hessian food is simple and proud: Grüne Soße, a cold green sauce of seven herbs, apple wine poured from a grey stone jug called a Bembel, and Frankfurter Kranz, a ring cake with butter cream. In late August the Museum Embankment Festival fills the river banks, the Frankfurt Book Fair takes over the city in October, and the Christmas market fills the Römerberg square in December.

  • 1749Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is born in Frankfurt
  • 1955the first documenta art exhibition opens in Kassel
  • 1995the Messel Pit fossil site joins the UNESCO World Heritage list

Hessen through time

The big moments, and where to see them today.

  1. about 47 million years agoIn a lake near Messel, animals sink into the mud and become fossils – early horses the size of a fox, birds, and insects that still show their colours.See it: Senckenberg Natural History Museum
  2. 1749Goethe is born in a house on the Großer Hirschgraben in Frankfurt.See it: Goethe House, Frankfurt
  3. 1812In Kassel, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm publish the first volume of their Children's and Household Tales.See it: Grimmwelt Kassel
  4. 1955The first documenta shows modern art that the Nazis had banned as 'degenerate'.See it: Museum Fridericianum, Kassel

What to do in Hessen

  1. 01

    Städel Museum

    700 years of European art, from Botticelli and Vermeer to Picasso.

    Frankfurt3 hours
  2. 02

    Goethe House

    The writer's family home, with the room where he wrote his first books.

    Frankfurt1 hour
  3. 03

    Grimmwelt Kassel

    A playful museum about the Brothers Grimm, their fairy tales and their dictionary.

    Kassel2 hours
  4. 04

    Senckenberg Natural History Museum

    Dinosaurs and the famous fossils from the Messel Pit.

    Frankfurt2 hours
Getting there

Getting to Hessen

Almost every museum is easy to reach by public transport.

Getting around Hessen

Lines and timetables change. Check the operator’s website before you travel.

On the map

Route ↗
Hidden story

A monument to a sauce

Frankfurt honours its favourite dish with seven little greenhouses.

Read the storyClose

Frankfurt's Grüne Soße is made with seven herbs: borage, chervil, cress, parsley, burnet, sorrel and chives. People in Frankfurt eat it cold with boiled eggs and potatoes, especially around Easter. In 2007 the city gave the sauce its own monument in Oberrad, the district where most of the herbs are grown: seven small greenhouses, each in the colour of one herb.

See it: Green Sauce Monument, Frankfurt-Oberrad