The days are grey and it gets dark in the late afternoon. Nevertheless, we decide on a skyline stroll, which we hope will bring a bit of colour to the greyness of the day. We decide to head out at the fall of darkness, however, to enjoy the skyline views from various inner-city bridges at night, and to take our readers with us.

This place is unknown to us. That's what we thought when we made our way past Honsell Bridge and walked around Osthafen 1. That's the harbour’s correct name, by the way. There’s an Osthafen 2 as well, located much further east, beyond the A661 motorway.

When we think of Frankfurt’s West End district, we think of beautiful old buildings, the Palmengarten – Frankfurt’s magnificent botanical gardens – and the university campus, amongst other things. We encountered all of these, plus modern architecture, extensive green belts and a few secluded corners, during our approximately one-and-a-half-hour walk.

Looks like we’ve gotten out just in time: Everywhere we look, Mother Nature is awakening from its winter sleep. Sadly, most of you aren’t able to be here – yet – to enjoy this natural spectacle, thanks to that dreadful pandemic that we won’t mention again by name! And so, we’ve put on our walking shoes and gone out to bring springtime to you – photographing magnolias, daffodils, cherry blossoms … all the gifts of nature. As it so happened, we were there just in the nick of time, because, as everyone knows, the full bloom of spring is generally over in a few short days.