Now on to Nuremberg:

After making our pit stop at Warburg Castle, we drove another 2 hours and finally arrived in Nuremberg with the promise of a nice steak dinner.

Trying all of the authentic German foods, my classmates and I were just dying for a nice American meal. Our professors took us to the Barfüßer beer hall in Nuremberg. There we got a delicious steak, some fries, and I officially tried the famous Nuremberg sausages. The steak was a nice medium rare and definitely was my favorite of our group dinner meals. After the dinner went back to the hotel and relaxed while some of our classmates went to an Irish pub.

Here’s a pic of my dessert from that night (best ice cream I’ve ever tasted):

The next day, we went on a tour of Nuremberg and saw all of the city. It was pouring the entire tour but it was one of my favorite tours because the city was beautiful. I would put some educational info in here but I’ll be honest I’m blanking on all of it. Well anyways, here are some pictures:

During the tour, they gave us an hour lunch break, so naturally we found the closest Italian restaurant and chowed down our food. Just LOOK at this pasta though, isn’t it beautiful?

After that delicious plate of pasta, our tour pretty much concluded here:

This really cool religious fountain from the 14th century is called the Schooner Brunnen. On that fence is a ring, if you spin this golden ring three times and make a wish, it is supposed to come true. Sadly, mine did not but I hope to go back and try again some day.

After this long tour, a group of friends and I were able to explore the city ourselves. I was with some history majors, so obviously on our time off we’re still going to be looking for historical stuff.

In class before the trip, we read a reading called “The Faithful Executioner”. It was all about the executioner of Nuremberg and on the tour we learned that he had to live excluded from the community because obviously no one wanted to be associated with the town executioner. We walked across the city to find this man’s house, crossed multiple bridges and everything. We finally arrived and it turns out his house was closed in the winter months, but we did get to see the outside and a ton of beautiful places during our lengthy walk there!

Please note the Nuremberg is a big city and finding this place, or any other place for that matter WITHOUT GPS or cell phones was a challenge. However, as our professors said, getting lost was the only way to see the city! One store we found while we were wandering was called the “American store” which was basically a store where they sold all stereotypical “American” things. They must really think we’re all from the south because all they had for clothing was literally camo, cowboy hats, and guns. And all they had for food was junk food and pop tarts… I guess that’s accurate though?

Here’s some pictures from when we were wandering:

After exploring, some friends and I settled down to a nice italian dinner, where I got a “margarita pizza” which is what we in America call a normal pizza. This thing was the size of my head and if you know how much I love food, you know I was pumped about that. After dinner, we went back to the hotel where we found our friends getting ready to go to a beer hall, so naturally we joined in on the fun.

We went back to the Barfüßer for a beer, and then off to our favorite place- the Dubliner (an Irish Pub). This is where myself and the rest of the class discovered our love for Baby Guinness shots and vodka oranges. We also discovered that drinking every night is going to eventually bankrupt us.

The order of events in terms of tours and places is also all meshing together, so I’m just gonna go ahead and say that the next day we woke up and went to see all of the Nazi party rally grounds as well as a holocaust/ Nazi rally ground muesum (go along with it).

Our bus pulled up to this parking lot with a long line of brick/cement bleachers and we were told to get out. We had no clue what it was, maybe a racing track or something? Instead, our tour guide told us how this parking lot used to be a huge Nazi Party rally ground site. Here is a picture to show you what it used to look like:

Here’s what it looks like today:

It was crazy to imagine that just less than a century ago this parking lot was full of life. So many people cheering and celebrating an institution that was the destruction of Germany and much of Europe in the 1940’s was crazy to imagine. I mean I’m sure none of these people knew that it would result in WWII and mass murder of 6 million Jews, and I think that might be the scariest part of all of this. Just imagine sitting there cheering for Hitler, not knowing that in a few short years he would destroy the entire country and kill millions.

After going to the rally grounds, we went to the rally grounds museum. We learned that Germany has a law in which it’s kids have to be educated on the holocaust in the classroom and through taking field trips to museums and camps. In doing this, the government hopes that this will never happen again.

The museum was located in the creepiest building ever. Here’s a panorama:

This building was supposed to be a government building for Hitler and the Nazi’s. However, it was never fully completed and put into use. It looks like a warehouse but on the inside there is marble floors that have barely ever been touched. The government does not want to knock it down and erase the memories of this era. However, they do not want to put it into use, as they feel it would be condoning the Nazi’s and everything they stood for. Instead, this building, except for the museum, is just standing there and will only come down centuries later when it decomposes on its own.

The most powerful thing I saw in the museum was this:

The papers had names of holocaust victims on them. Those cards are probably representing less than 1% of the people that were actually killed in the holocaust though.

Overall, Nuremberg is a city of fun but like every city we’ve visited so far- it is touched by the horrors of the holocaust and WWII. I really enjoyed this city overall, probably because my friends and I had so much fun exploring and also enjoying good food (and also at the Dubliner).

After Nuremberg, we were headed to Augsburg. Before we could go there, we made a pit stop at my favorite town on the whole trip- Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber.

Stay tuned to see what made it so special!! Here’s a preview- yes it’s obviously going to involve food.