Ok, I think some context is in order for my choice of destinations for Easter Break. I could have gone south to see Italy or Spain like most Europeans. However, I’ve always wanted to go to the Netherlands to see the world-class cycling infrastructure, so I decided to do a classic train trip to the Netherlands through Germany. The full itinerary hits six different cities (although it actually turned into 7). Nürnberg, Bamberg, Frankfurt, Utrecht, Haarlem, and Amsterdam. As for the city selection, I picked cities that looked interesting on the way toward Amsterdam, with the ultimate goal of ending up there after two weeks. Nuremberg always seemed like a fascinating destination for me, especially in regard to its WWII history. Bamberg was a totally random insert. I had seen it on
a list of the prettiest German cities, but I really didn’t know anything about it. Since it was only an hour from Nuremberg and directly on the way to Frankfurt, I said, "Why not?” Frankfurt was a must-stop for me. A friend of mine, Julia (who you might remember from my posts about Regensburg), invited me to stay at her house in Frankfurt. She was thrilled to show me around Frankfurt and give me a true Frankfurter experience. Then on to Utrecht. Utrecht had a special place in my memory ever since I first saw a YouTube video about cycling there almost eight years ago (I think?). Ever since then, I wanted it to be a stop on any trip to Europe. Finally, there’s Haarlem. In all honestly, I wasn’t planning on visiting this city, but Amsterdam was overbooked and too flipping expensive every day I wanted to book it. Keep the expensiveness in mind when I get to the Netherlands later in the series.
With that cleared up, let’s begin!
Part 1: Nuremberg
As mentioned, I really wanted to travel to Nuremberg to see its famous old town and its infamous WWII history. I arrived via Flix Bus on Friday, March 30th, after yet another long ride bus ride. It was a dark, rainy evening, and I had to wind my way through the old town to find my Hostel. This wasn’t the only rainy day in Nuremberg. In fact, it rained every day while I was there, but I didn’t let that get in my way too much. On the first day in Nuremberg, I explored the old town and walked up to the old castle above the city.
The city’s castle was the site of the court of the Holy Roman Emperor and the location where the future Emperor was chosen. The Holy Roman Empire is incredibly confusing (I don’t entirely get its structure) but it was essentially a bizarre amalgamation of small countries and city-states that elected an “Emperor” to “rule” over the hundreds of different cities. The Emperor had no real power, and each of the city-states acted for the most part on their own. At the same time, being the “Holy Roman Emperor” was the equivalent of the biggest nobility flex of the time, so every noble in the middle of Europe wanted to become Emperor. The Empire gradually lost what little unity it had, especially after the protestant reformation. The northern states became protestant, while the southern ones continued to be Catholic. They had a huge civil war (the 30 Years' War), which killed almost 20% of the Central European population at the time. The Empire limped along for a few more centuries but gradually became usurped by monarchies like Austria and Prussia. Napoleon put an end to the whole ridiculous thing in 1806, ending the 1,000-year-long institution that began with Charlemagne.
As the Empire waned in importance, so did Nuremberg. In effect, this prevented most of its old city from demolition since no wealthy noble embarked on an urban renewal project in Nuremberg (like say in Vienna, Budapest, or Paris). Nuremberg remained a wonderfully intact Medieval city until WW2 when the entire city was leveled by American and British bombers (for reasons I’ll get into later). The city castle was destroyed down to its 1st floor but has since been wonderfully rebuilt. It’s an impressive building, and the museum inside was well worth a visit if it was a bit dry on Holy Roman Empire history. They also offer a great short talk about the castle well, where the guide lowers a candle down 150 feet to the base of the well. Sadly I wasn’t able to get a good picture of that though, (Rick Steves actually had this in his Nuremberg travel segment- so look up his video on Nuremberg if you’re interested).
After the castle tour, I walked around the old town and to the local Easter Market. One of my favorite things to do in Europe is going to markets and trying samples of local food. It’s like the Cherry Republic but bigger (and dare I say- better?). Overall the main monuments of the old city have been wonderfully reconstructed. Every church feels like it stood for ages, and many plazas feel properly old. The only giveaway from some churches of their reconstruction is their stained glass windows. While scrolling through my Nuremberg photos below, notice how some stained glass weirdly stops. Well, that was the stained glass that was able to be saved from the bombs in the catacombs of the city. As the war ended, the Nazis hurriedly rushed most of the city’s treasures into its catacombs, thus saving many paintings, stained glass windows, and statues. At the same time though, I think it’s a bit of a misnomer that Nuremberg is an old German city. I’ve noticed that many travel agencies and blogs push the idea that Nuremberg is an idyllic German old city. It’s not. Sure, they did a better job than most cities at reconstructing many of their monuments and famous streets, but it’s most certainly a modern German city like Cologne, Munich, or Berlin. Most of the old town was just typical 1950s housing blocks with red roofs slapped on top. It makes sense though. Not only did they likely not have plans for the average residential block, but also who would want to recreate a cramped medieval apartment anyway?
Now it’s time to circle back to why the Allies decided to bomb the old city of Nuremberg. Nuremberg before the war was considered the “most German of German cities.” It was the capital of the 1st Reich (The Holy Roman Empire), and its old city represented the height of medieval German culture. Hitler believed this city was the perfect place to base the rallies of his Nazi Party. It was outside the old city where Hitler planned to create the parade grounds and congress hall of the party. Nuremberg was not meant to be an administrative city (that was always Berlin) but rather a ceremonial one. It was at the Zeppelin Field outside of the city where large-scale Nazi rallies were held, including Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 “Triumph of the Will,” where most Nazi rally images come from. Walking through the parade grounds is eery, especially on a rainy day. The rain dances across the now decrepit stone steps as vegetation gradually overcomes much of the former bleachers where SS soldiers once stood. In a wonderful piece of irony that I’m sure would have driven Hitler mad, the former Zeppelin Field contains a series of sports fields and part of a race track. While I was there, a local football team (yes, that’s American Football) was practicing throwing the pigskin around. An American sport taking over the most German of German cities.
To my surprise, the entire parade ground is just open to the public like a huge open-air museum. You can walk basically everywhere, even to the podium where Hitler once stood (of course, I went up there too). You can also walk around the congress hall, a massive uncomplete auditorium where Hitler was to make his yearly Nazi Congress speech after the rallies. The entire building was to be used once a year- for one speech.
I guess I should have expected it, but the party grounds are still a continued symbol of Nazism. While the paint may have faded slightly, someone (whether as a sick joke or a legitimate act of hate) had spray-painted swastikas on some of the footpaths around the party grounds. I’m not going to post a photo of that here for obvious reasons.
It was the importance of Nuremberg to the Nazis which led to repeated Allied bombings of the city and eventually a hard-fought battle where US forces finally captured the Nazi stronghold. The US captured the city only a few weeks before the end of the war. The Nazis were so fanatic that they only surrendered Nuremberg on the 20th of April 1945- 10 days before Hitler committed suicide. The Allies also saw the city as an example of Nazi hate, and after the war housed the Nuremberg trials in a building outside of the city center. The prison where Nazi war criminals were held (and some later executed) has since been demolished to prevent Neo-Nazi congregations.
Anyway- time to move on from that thoroughly depressing topic to something more interesting. Over the course of my days in Nuremberg, I decided to seek out typical Bavarian towns not destroyed by the war. Fortunately, that isn’t hard to find at all. I visited two small towns in Nuremberg. Fürth, and the even smaller town of Schwabach. Fürth is a nice town on the edge of Nuremberg’s subway system, but honestly, it wasn’t too much to write home about. It does have a fantastic connection to the Bamberg-Nuremberg walking and bike trail though. I actually walked from Fürth back to Nuremberg, a highlight of my time in the city. The path is a great, relaxing walk along the Pegnitz River.
The town of Schwabach, on the other hand, was fantastic. A classic Bavarian town with a beautiful city square sat next to a bumbling stream. Each building huddles together as if fighting for what little space the old town had. Every cobbled street wound randomly through the town, along what were probably ancient footpaths. I think I almost twisted my ankle on them a few times though- cobbles are not the nicest thing to walk on, despite how quaint they make a town look.
In Schwabach, I also went to a local Bavarian restaurant and sat at a stammtisch table with two dads who had recently returned from watching their daughters play basketball. As a bit of clarity here, a stammtisch is a table in a restaurant where small groups of people (usually 1 or 2) can sit together and meet other strangers. It’s a brilliant way to make solo travelers or small groups feel welcome in a new setting. This won’t be the last time I sit at a stammtisch during the trip. Anyway, the dads were in the middle of having a small disagreement about how the game went. One of them lamented the fact that their daughter’s team had lost, while the other commented that it was a close game, so it was not that big of a deal. To which the other father, now a few beers in, exclaimed that a “loss was a loss” and no reason to celebrate. This went on for a good ten minutes, with each repeating their points in a cycle of almost comical repetition.
My final day in Nuremberg was spent mostly indoors because of the once again horrid rainy weather outside. Nuremberg hosts the DB (Deutsche Bahn) or German National Railway Museum. It was actually the location of the first railway in Germany, between Nuremberg and Fürth. It’s a thoroughly informative museum, although a bit overwhelming in its size. Essentially four massive floors are all dedicated to trains. I like trains, but not THAT much. Still really cool, though.
Anyway, that caps off my time in Nuremberg. It was definitely a fun city with lots of things to see and do. I’d certainly recommend it over Munich, although with the expectation in mind that it is not the medieval German city that so many travel brochures proclaim. I wouldn’t mind going back someday, and hopefully with better weather. On Monday, the 3rd of April, I boarded a local train to take me to Bamberg, a much smaller German city about an hour north of Nuremberg. Onward to Bamberg for the next blog post!
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