It was raining when we left England and still raining when we arrived in Nuremberg on Monday evening. The flight was on time and a short one. We collected our luggage and caught the underground to Hauptbahnoff and then using Goggle maps in the pouring rain found our hotel. We are staying at the NH Collection hotel and we had a nice room. There is even an Nespresso machine in the room. As it was late so we decided not go out again in the rain.
Nuremberg is the second-largest city of the German federal state of Bavaria after its capital of Munich, and its 511,628 (2016) inhabitants make it the 14th largest city of Germany. On the Pegnitz River and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it lies in the Bavarian administrative region of Middle Franconia, and is the largest city and the unofficial capital of Franconia. It often referred to as having been the 'unofficial capital' of the Holy Roman Empire, particularly because Imperial Diet and courts met at the Castle.
For Martin Luther, Nuremberg was 'the eyes and ears of Germany'. It was a 'media centre', home to 21 printing houses, which helped to rapidly circulate the messages of the Reformation.
On Tuesday, it was still raining but we decided to for a walk and the rain didn’t last too long. Nuremberg's Altstadt (Old Town) is encircled by massive Stadtmauer (city walls). The town within is divided by the river Pegnitz. The northern half, Sebalder Altstadt, clusters around St Sebald Church and the Town Hall, and is dominated by the Imperial Castle. The southern half, Lorenzer Altstadt, clusters around the Lorenzkirche. Several charming little bridges criss-cross the river. It is 5km all the way round (I know because I have run it!) and there is the old moat you can also walk in (they have removed the water).
We were a couple of minutes walk from the Old Town so we headed there, I knew the Christmas markets were in the centre. However, we first needed to have some breakfast so we found a great cafe for a roll and the legendary Nuremberg Lebkuchen (Gingerbread). Once fortified we started off on our walking tour around the market, it was quite large and plenty of kiosks to look at, Linda was in her element, lots of craft ideas - I liked looking at the different types of Lebkuchen.
At the eastern end is the ornate Gothic Frauenkirche and we were there at midday to witness the clock’s figures enact a spectacle called the Männleinlaufen (Little Men Dancing). Linda would have taken some photos as she had her camera, but unfortunately it didn’t record them as she had left the battery in the charger in the hotel room.
After this we wandered around the street and looked at the architecture, it was quite interesting all the different houses, no doubt some were Gothic. The Castle is at the north end (our hotel being at the south end) and It is at the top of a hill, so we walked up the wet slippery cobbled pavement, I was making sure Linda didn’t fall over again and reached the top. The castle is medieval and you have some great views of the new city and beyond. We had a wander around the parts which had free entrance. After all this effort we stopped for a cup of tea and coffee, before going back to the hotel.
In the evening we went out again to see the Christmas Market lit up, it was good but much more crowded with people pushing and shoving. It wasn’t raining now but much colder. We did try the local sausages and they were nice. We then wandered around a different part of the old city and it was much calmer.
On Wednesday morning I went for a run around the city walls, I only went once as it was 5k all the way round. I could have done it seven times, but then the walls might have fallen down! It was a gentle run, too many roads to cross so you had to keep stopping and starting, but the weather was good. We had breakfast in the room before we set off on our walking tour.
From my run I had found some different parts to visit, so we had a stroll through some different gates into the city, we found a running shop, C & A and two Starbucks (but didn’t stop at either). We stopped for a spot of lunch, I had a tomato and cheese baguette, while Linda had cheesecake. Linda has been taking a lot of photos today, it appears the camera works better with a battery in it.
We went and saw the house where Albrecht Dürer lived. He was an artist from the 15th/16th century and was part of the German Renaissance. They had some copies of his work, I thought they looked quite basic and dull, but then I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder! We also had a look around St Sebald Church which is famous for being old and having several organs, it was really interesting....
After this we wandered back to the market and had another look around, popped into the Nespresso shop as you get free coffees there to taste. It was getting dark by now so we decided to walk back to the hotel via a few shops.
They had a nativity scene which had live animals, a sheep, two donkeys and a camel. Great idea - I wonder if we could do that at church next year.
About halfway back I realised I had lost my very expensive Tesco hat and so Linda insisted we went to look for it, so we had to retrace our steps and go into the shops again and ask in English if they had seen it, some didn’t understand English so Linda was making do with hand signals and actions. We did in fact find it in one of the local shops, so now I have a sermon not on the lost sheep but the lost hat!
We then took a different route back from the shops and saw even more of the old city, we have probably walked down every road now. It was early evening when we got back to the hotel and we had been out walking for about 7 hours and covered around 10 miles.
On Thursday we had an evening flight, so we had time to wander around a couple of museums. We first went to the Nuremberg Trials Museum at the Palais of Justice, which was a short metro ride away. Courtroom 600 is where the trials took place and is still a working courtroom, but there is also an exhibition upstairs. When we arrived the courtroom was closed so we had a look around the exhibition, it is all in German but you have an audio machine which you take round and listen to it in English - it got a bit boring in the end as you had to keep keying in the exhibit number, so I was selective as to the exhibits I listened to. It took about an hour to go round and as we were leaving we could see the courtroom was now open, so we went in and sat in the public area. It is a lot smaller than it was after the war, but still very basic.
The first steam-powered railway line was between Nuremberg and Furth which opened on 7th December 1835. The Deutsche Bahn (DB) Museum of Transport is in Nuremberg and as the weather was overcast and occasionally wet we visited this on our way back. It was quite interesting looking at all the trains as well as the other exhibit, there was a massive model railway there. There was a history of communication exhibits as well as full sized locomotives you could go on.
After this it was time for coffee and a last wander around the Christmas markets, although as it was evening it has started to get busy again. It was soon time to get the train back to the airport and the plane back to UK, but not home.
