Short Stop

Nuremberg was my wiggle room city.

I had managed to fit in a one day visit on my way to Prague from Munich, but if any plans throughout the trip had gone wrong, I would have taken the day from Nuremberg and just skipped the city entirely.

I'm glad I didn't have to though.

I spent less than twenty four hours there, but it was worth it just to see a quieter side if Germany.

My host Basti picked me up from the train station and took me on a power tour of Nuremberg.

I had planned for the city simply to see the Nazi party rally grounds that I had heard about from my dad and step mother's travels through the city.

Hitler, for reasons I'm not quite sure of, favored Nuremberg particularly.  There he had many plans for Nazi related buildings and structures, hardly any of which were ever finished.

The Nazi Congress hall had actually been completed and stood next to the stadium where you've see Hitler make many of his speeches in history class.  In the 90's, Nuremberg kept the original building, but added some more modern architecture to turn it into a museum.  The museum's permanent exhibition "Fascination and Terror" explores the events behind the Nazi's rise to power, and the ways in which they rallied the people together through, well, fascination and terror.  It also had exhibits on the Nuremberg Laws, and of course the more infamous Nuremberg Trials.

Unfortunately for me, I arrived one hour too late to be able to enter the museum.  I should have really liked to have seen the contents of the museum.

The stadium however is outside and generally always open.  Although, visitors are warned to enter at their own risk.  The stadium is in extreme disrepair.  You could see where chunks of concrete had already been replaced, but you could also see how much work still needed to be done.  Basti said the city was torn between spending loads of money to fix a historical site (that they are perhaps not so proud of), or just tear it down.  I could not form an opinion on this issue either way. Both sides have their own merit.

It was obvious where Hitler stood, although the architecture definitely wasn't what it once was. 

Not by accident.

After the war, the Americans blew up anything they could.  There was once archways lining behind the main balcony pulpit.  Not anymore.  Where Hitler once stood, was no more than a square chunk of concrete.  Railings were added to prevent tourists from falling off, I presumed.

Just on the other side of the stadium was the finished, but unused, parade parkway, Große Straße (pronounced gross strass)  It was an extremely long and wide paved road that had originally held connections with Nuremberg in medieval times.  It was intended to be paraded down by the Nazi army.  Although, it was never used due to the outbreak of WWII.

Now they liked to use it for drag racing.

We headed up into Nuremberg's old town, which was built around a quiet little river.  At the summit of the town, was Nuremberg castle, which was pretty well preserved considering it was built 700 years ago.

That night we attended my second ever couch surfing meeting.  Apparently attendance was always hit or miss.  I happened to be there on one of those miss days.  There was myself and Basti, an elderly man and woman that I believe were just friends, a German guy, a Turkish guy, and then the Czech -possibly the most annoying human being I've encountered thus far in my almost 23 years of existence.

Now I don't remember his name, something typically Czech I think, so I'm going to refer to him as Nancy.

Nancy knew everything about Europe.  He didn't have opinions about anything, because his opinion was fact.

It started out with Nancy telling me not to go to Prague because it wasn't really Czech and therefore wasn't that great. He maintained that it was outrageously expensive (which I would find out quite the opposite).  I said I was sorry to hear he didn't like Prague because I had only heard great things about the city.  When I said (to Basti who had asked) that I would go there by train.  Nancy's petticoats got all twisted and he adamantly insisted that I MUST take a bus instead.  To which he went on and on about Deutchbahn train company, and how Prague wasn't worth the trip anyways.  He thought I should visit his home town.  A proper Czech municipality.

Nancy eventually turned the conversation to WWII.  Why on EARTH you would do that IN Nuremberg with FIVE Germans present (two of which were definitely alive and could remember it).  He went on and on about how Warsaw fought and they have their pride.  The young German guy was arguing with Nancy on details of the military strategies.  But Nancy, with his bonnet now completely askew, was getting all worked up about Czech pride.  They wished they would have tonight back etc etc.  To which I inserted, "But then you wouldn't have beautiful Prague!".  He was not amused.

Basti let me fire away for another ten minutes or so, then we headed home.  He had to work the next day, and I had to go prove myself right about Prague.

Güte Nacht Nuremberg
Tegs