Of all our road trip destinations, we spent the least time in Nuremberg, which was a shame for two reasons: (1) Though smaller than Munich, Nuremberg is totally awesome; and (2) We were there less than 24 hours and the weather sucked the whole time, so we didn’t feel like we got to enjoy it very much.
Nuremberg, like Nicosia, is a walled city and was the unofficial capital of the Holy Roman Empire. It is infamous across the world for its association with the Nazi party, including large rallies and the eventual Nuremberg Trials. As Severin and I knew we were going to the Dachau Concentration Camp on our way to Munich, we decided to forego any of Nuremberg’s Nazi sites, though it has a well known and supposedly quite well-done museum at the Nazi Party Rally Grounds.
In Nuremberg, we stayed at a quirky boutique hotel “Drei Raben” (three ravens), and the friendly German man at reception gave us a suggested walking route around the walled city and walked us through some of the highlights. The walled city has a river running through it which makes for some picturesque views. I could see myself living in a condo along the waters’ edge:
Nuremberg has a nice Christmas market, but it was very crowded– we saw more English-speaking tourists there than we saw anywhere else along our journey. I bought a couple of pressed tin ornaments at the Christmas market, and I bought Andy a glass unicorn ornament there. However, the best stuff was at a bricks-and-mortar Kathe Wolfahrt store. I bought my dad a beautiful Christmas smoker (it’s a German thing)– he is a Bavarian hunter with a big gray beard and even had a little rifle over his shoulder! I bought several very nice glass ornaments here as well, including one of a Bavarian couple for the newlyweds Tim & Sara’s first Christmas.
Nuremberg has a dozen or so of the original timber houses– they are incredible outside (and inside too, I peeped through some of the windows and they have beautiful exposed beams on the ceilings!)
The hotel recommended “Bohm’s Herrenkeller” for dinner and recommended several Franconian dishes for us to try. The restaurant had a great atmosphere (though it was full and I was one of three women in there, and one of them was the waitress), with ceramic mugs and German tchotchkes on the wall. I was excited to try some of the dishes, but honestly after four or five days of eating heaving Czech and German food (after months of relatively light Mediterranean food, where the heaviest meat is grilled pork), I was starting to feel seriously disgusting, so I didn’t eat most of it and I had no beer at all.
There is a small island in the middle of the river connected by a footbridge (it is out of view from this picture, it would be to the right of this tower). In the 17th to 19th centuries, every community had a hangman, and as the work was considered dishonorable, hangmen had to live apart from the community.
There was a series of ceramic reliefs on one of the buildings showing the various trades. Several of them were very familiar surnames, e.g., “Schmidt” the blacksmith:
Here’s a familiar surname! And speaking of familiar surnames, I made most of the reservations for this trip, which resulted in Severin being called “Mr. Beck” a lot which he didn’t particularly enjoy. We walked into the hotel in Nuremberg and there was a sign that said “Welcome Mr. & Mrs. Beck!” and though I tried to hide it from him, he found it anyway 🙁 Severin is a feminist, but Mr. Beck was clearly a bridge too far. We’ll know patriarchy is dead when we live in a world where men consider taking their wives’ names (whichever is easiest to spell/pronounce!)
