Nuremberg

We boarded our bus early for the drive to Nuremberg. We’re off the ship now and staying two nights each in Nuremberg and Prague, before flying back to the UK. We made good progress until we reached the city and then got stuck in traffic jams. We toured the city by bus, with our guide Jan giving us lots of details – mainly about Nazi rallies, Nazi trials, and other Nazi stuff. We then dropped off outside the old city walls while the bus drove on to deliver our luggage to the hotel, and we embarked on a walking tour of the city. The rain which had been near-constant for the last hour or so had dried up, and it was turning out nice again – not too hot.

Jan took us up to the old walls and explained the history of Nuremburg. Despite being heavily defended it was never actually subject to attacks. He told us how the city was divided up, with the nobility and rich people living in one section north of the river, and the tradesmen and other types in the southern part of the city. This is still reflected today with most of the shopping area being in the southern part.

View from the castle

Castle tower

This old house...escaped the bombing (90% didn't)

We visited two famous residences – that of Albrecht Durer, renaissance painter, and also that of a publisher. What’s so great about publishing? Well, this one published the works of Copernicus, which got him into so much trouble with the idiots church officials. Also on the tour was the church of St. Sebaldus, which was built as so many people came to see his grave. Not a pilgrimage, our guide told us, because they were Lutherans and they don’t do pilgrimages (they were pilgrimages). Early tourists, if you like.

We finished up in the market square, where some kind of event was going on – local bands playing on a temporary stage, lots of stalls selling food and food-related items. So far as I could gather it was all vegetarian/vegan, so maybe that’s what it was all about. We finished up by the Schoener brunnen (beautiful fountain), which has some lucky rings on it. You’re supposed to rotate these rings in the wrought-iron guard that surrounds the fountain, for luck. One is obvious and made of brass, but the “true” one is hidden round the back and is the same colour as the fencing. I did both, so double the luck! 

At this point we were released, and after Jan had mentioned the name of one eatery, we set off towards it like hares. This is a feature of these tours that could be improved, I feel – they insist on doing the walking tour straight away, which means lunch is very late. No matter, we found our way to Bratwurst Roslein without difficulty and immediately ordered the “sausage journey” – all different types of sausage, with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes. Washed down with a beer, of course. 

Sausages!

We met up again at the fountain just before three to be driven back to our hotel, Le Meridien (formerly Grand Hotel Nuremberg). Our luggage had indeed made its way safely to our rooms, so after a little rest we set out to explore the old city again. The hotel is at the  south west corner of the city, so we made our way up through the shopping area, past the Lorenz-kirche, and eventually meandered our way up to the city wall at the north east corner. We then wended our way back, crossing the river Pegnitz several times on picturesque bridges, before retracing our steps and returning to the hauptbanhof which is next to the hotel. 

As we’re no longer on a ship, lunch and dinner have to be organised by ourselves. No problem, I thought, we’ll just eat in the hotel restaurant. Schoolboy error. The restaurant is shut, because they can’t get the staff, apparently. So that’s one worse than Gatwick Hilton, who at least managed to open their shitty restaurant. We were offered a short menu in the bar, but that was full of a bunch of rowdy drunkards (guess which nationality? 😉), so we abandoned that and went out for a walk in the city. After looking in at a couple of places, and a false start or two (some restaurants don’t actually advertise what’s on offer – we went in to one, looked nice, got a menu…it’s an Indian. Didn’t want a curry so we left). Eventually we found a pub that had its menu on the outside wall, and it contained that magic word…Salad! We settled in there, had Italian salads of epic proportions (neither of us could finish them) then returned to the hotel to watch French television.