Day trip to Nuremberg

October 30

One of the things I like best about Germany are the trains ... and the really cool spots you can visit with a day transit pass that gives you unlimited access to the regional trains as well as inter-city buses and trams.  It makes it easy to get up in the morning, see that the sun the shining, and decide on the spur of the moment to take off.

Such was how we decided on a day trip to Nuremberg.  A beautiful town, rich in history dating back to the Romans, virtually destroyed during WWII, but rebuilt with amazing attention to historical detail.  A beautiful town that was also the center of the Nazi movement.  Which brings up the one thing I like least about Germany ... all that nasty sh*t surrounding WWII.  You never escape it as virtually every major city was touched by it; participated in it; has history embroiled in it.

 

Like so many German cities, Nuremberg was virtually leveled during WWII. But they still managed to reconstruct very old looking buildings in the last 50 years.

The Holy Ghost Hospital, with a dove in the middle of the tower section, was started in the 14th century and the part over the river was finished in the 16th century.

 

Gotta love a town that still has an outdoor fruit, vegie and flower market going ...the Hauptmarkt was built by Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV when the town walls separating the towns on opposite sides of the river were torn down. The market expressed the coming together of the two towns.

The Imperial Castle of Charles IV, who visited Nurnberg 60 times during his reign (1355-1378). The turrets were originally square ...not round.

 

The smiley face on the corner tower is a sundial

 

Another European city with another bad-ass church. This one started out Catholic and converted to Protestant ....Frauenkirche, with the golden Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV looking down on the Hauptmarkt from his balcony below the clock.

 

Our big tour was the Nazi Documentation Center and Rally Grounds, a disturbing and emotional side of German history that you cannot avoid while visiting here.  Nuremberg was central to the Nazi party and hosted their annual Nazi party rallies. The museum is focused on trying to explain the history, motivation, and methods that allowed Hitler and the Nazis to get into power and push through his horrific plans. It goes from the end of WWI all the way up to the Nuremberg trials. It's dark, it's evil, it's exhausting ... and good instruction in how totalitarianism and terror emerges in an otherwise sane world.  We have visited many places in Germany that connect the historical dots ... but it never gets any easier.

 

 

It's hard to think about eating after leaving the documentation center, but you definitely need a drink.



Dinner in a cellar café ... where Dan's German was better than the server's English!