Day 10: Touring Nuremberg

 Day 10: Touring Nuremberg

Today, we had all day to check out the sites. Our biggest touristy goal was to check out the three main churches, the Nazi rally grounds, and the Nuremberg war crimes trial court.

It's nice to stay at a hotel on a main market square. We walked out and quickly found a stall serving breakfast-like things: a Greek-style breakfast burrito with lamb. It worked.

    April was able to use her pepper flakes to spice things up!

On our walk to St. Lorenz Church, we passed many beautiful Nuremberg old town bridges:

St. Lorenz Church was originally completed in the 1400s.

The inside is as awe-inspiring as you would expect.

The church was bombed heavily in WW2. This case has debris from the time of the bombings, along with a picture showing the damage.

Next, we walked to the Germanic National Museum. This place is well worth a visit. It attempts to systemically document artistic and cultural contributions from across a united Germany for the last thousand years. We easily could have spent an entire afternoon here.

    The museum entrance is on a walkway dedicated to universal human rights.

The museum pieces range from religious relics, to knights & armor, to European master artists.

    This is the handle of a medieval cheese grater...

    An ancient garment with Charlemagne's standard on it.

    An incredibly moving huge medieval crucifix.

    Nuremberg was known for talented goldsmiths and globe makers. This globe was the first German globe to show the Americas.

A favorite son of Nuremberg is Albert Duhrer (1471-1528). He was considered an early European master artist, including painting, etching, and goldsmithing. Several of his works were on display at other museums. He is considered a leading Renaissance artist who brought humanity into portraits. And, he figured out how to print etchings of his work with a machine, which allowed him to sell a lot more art cheaply to the public and become a legend during his lifetime. Here is a very famous picture of his mother.

This wall is in the atrium of the museum. These are original street signs from Berlin following WW2, including many that people spray painted over. It was surprisingly moving.

After this museum, we decided to brave the subway system. Nuremberg isn't a huge city, but has a nice, functioning train, bus, and tram system. So, we walked back to Saint Lorenz Church, which has the only old town center subway stop and went four stops to Barenschanze, outside of the town walls, which is the stop for the Nuremberg trial complex. A quick and easy subway experience.

There was a short walk to the Nuremberg court house. We, once again, saw the sidewalk vs. biking lanes.

    April broke the rules by putting her foot in the bike lane!!!! Ugly Americans...

We found the Nuremberg court complex. It was gigantic. After WW2, the American military commandeered the entire facility from the Nuremberg city courts.

    The four powers...

    Dove scultpure in the garden.

The courtroom that held the war trials is known as "Courtroom 600." There are no exterior signs advertising the war crimes memorial. It's in this building:

There is an hour long audio tour that explains the basis for the war crime indictments, the players and process, and the ultimate results. It was fascinating. I highly recommend it.

Courtroom 600 is temporarily closed to the public for renovations. There are some windows for people to peek into the room, which was being used for something:

Rather than take the subway back to the city center, we decided to take the river walk along the Pegnitz River. The walk was cool under the tree canopy. Very enjoyable.

    Some fairly creative graffiti along the path...

    We made to back to the city center.

We walked down a street showing the traditional half-timbered construction technique. Beautiful.

We stumbled onto the famous St. Sebald Church. Magnificent.

    Spooky door handle

The inside was everything you would think. It was shocking how many ancient statues and paintings lines the walls like it was no big deal.

There was an artist on scaffolding hand painting the various wall statues. I hope to see it again when the work is complete!

By this time, it was about 4:30 pm. So, we decided to get an early dinner after an action-packed, but hot/tiring day. We needed some more spicy food, so we went to the Mexican restaurant next to the Australian restaurant from the night before.

    Chips, salsa, margarita. Winning!

After the meal, we walked to our nearby hotel and collapsed for a long nap. By 8:00 pm, we decided to walk back to the pleasant beer garden area from the night before. It was great. Nuremberg has a terrific culture of people, both young and old, socializing in this open square in a chill fashion (no public drunkenness) instead of staying home watching TV. There are so many squares and street corners like this.

In this square, there is a beer stand. The beer is very cheap, usually less than 4 Euros. However, there is a 3 Euro deposit fee for every glass you have. When you're done, you turn in your glasses for a refund.

    Loving her spice, April brought some red chiles from the Mexican restaurant to put them in her Helles. When we returned her glass for a deposit, we got a LOT of questions from the bartender. He was confused and impressed, and returned our 6 Euro deposit with a laugh. Here's a picture looking back up the hill where we were seated.

We had a great day. We didn't get to see everything, but it was really fun. The Nuremberg rally grounds, where the Nazis held their famous rallies and ceremonies, was closed. That would have been interesting to see.

This is our last night in Nuremberg. Tomorrow, on to Cologne for some Kolsch!