Begin at the Goethehaus und Goethemuseum, the home of Germany's greatest poet. The house is within a 5- to 10-minute walk of both the Hauptwache and the Willy Brandt Platz subway stations. Next, follow Bethmannstrasse as it turns into Braubachstrasse to reach the Museum für Moderne Kunst, the Museum of Modern Art, one of Frankfurt's modern architectural monuments. Walk a few blocks and several centuries back in time south to the Kaiserdom, the cathedral, which is next to Römerberg Square, the historic heart of the city; the medieval square holds the Römer, or city hall. After lunch cross over the Main River on the Eiserner Steg (Iron Bridge) to reach the old Sachsenhausen quarter, where you can browse in several museums, including the Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, with its important collection of old masters and impressionists, and the Städtische Galerie Liebieghaus, which contains sculpture from the third millennium BC up to the modern age. In the evening, relax in one of Sachsenhausen's apple-cider taverns.

Spend the morning at one of the sights you may have missed on day one. Start at the Goethehaus and Goethemuseum or Römerberg Square, where the Römer, Nikolaikirche, Historisches Museum, Paulskirche, and the Kaiserdom are all nearby. The Museum für Moderne Kunst is just up Domstrasse from the cathedral. Take a midday break before continuing northward to Germany's shop-'til-you-drop Zeil district and the Zoologischer Garten, one of Europe's best zoos. End the evening listening to music in the Frankfurter Jazzkeller.

Alternatively the entire second day can be devoted to the museums in Sachsenhausen, starting with the Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, where you will find paintings by Albrecht Dürer, Jan Vermeer, Rembrandt, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and other masters. German expressionism and the Frankfurt artist Max Beckmann are particularly well represented. Move on to the sculpture collection at the Städtische Galerie Liebieghaus. Afterward explore Sachsenhausen's nightlife.

On the morning of the third day, see the Naturkundemuseum Senckenberg and its famous collection of dinosaurs and giant whales. Afterward visit the nearby Palmengarten und Botanischer Garten, which have climatic zones from tropical to sub-Antarctic and a dazzling range of orchids. Take the U-bahn to Opernplatz, and emerge before the 19th-century splendor of the Alte Oper: lunch on Fressgasse is not far away. In the afternoon, go to the visitors' gallery of the Börse to feel the pulse of Europe's banking capital. Then continue on to the less worldly Karmeliterkloster. Secularized in 1803, the monastery church and adjacent buildings house the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, the Museum of Prehistory and Early History. Just around the corner on the bank of the Main, in the former Rothschild Palais, the Jüdisches Museum tells the 1,000-year story of Frankfurt's Jewish quarter and its end in the Holocaust.