Nuremberg day 1: the Old Town

Saturday June 11

On Thursday we flew from SFO to Frankfurt with over 400 other people on a Lufthansa Airbus. It was an uneventful flight, which is the most positive thing one can say these days about air travel. From the Frankfurt airport's very own bahnhof, we took the train to Nuremberg, a quiet smooth trip of about 2.5 hours, and arrived at our hotel late in the afternoon Friday. Having slept little (me) or not at all (Dan) since leaving home, we were proud to stay up until 8pm and happy to sleep well all night. 

Saturday's excursions were all in the Old Town, between the train station and the Imperial Castle. Most of our path was on pedestrian streets with snazzy shops along the way. Nuremberg seems to be pretty prosperous, with the same brand-name stores one sees around Union Square (though I haven't seen an Apple store, much less one with glass doors 40 feet high). Most of the conversations we heard were in German, with a smattering of other recognizable languages, including an "Oh, my GOD" or two.

The public art we saw had a strong dose of death. This fountain shows about five human couples, some in grotesque bodily states (e. g., skin and bones with skeletons showing), others persecuting each other in various ways. I figured out that the plaque said "Until death separates them," and in general that seemed preferable. 

Another sculpture was a modern version of the medieval Ship of Fools, with a quotation about laughing scornfully at death:

At the church of St. Sebald, we got our first real dose of Nuremberg's unpleasant Nazi era and the effects of WWII on the city. The church has a moving series of photos ("St. Sebald -- a monument to peace") each with a short poem like this one. The poem begins, "20th April 1945 / The guns are silent / Nuremberg fallen . . ."

The city museum was less chilling.  It illustrates the history of Nuremberg with interesting artifacts, maps, city models, and photos. This tankard is as big as it looks:

We continued up the hill to the Imperial Castle, where the Holy Roman Emperor stayed when he was in town. In previous travels we've seen lots of medieval arms and armor, which seemed to be the main attraction of the exhibits inside, so we decided to look at the gardens and return to our hotel. I don't have any photos to prove this, but I think they deadhead and prune the roses every day; I saw exactly one spent bloom.