The Memorandum: Great Train Journey - Nuremberg: Part 1 (10 pics)

After Dresden, the next city in my trip was Nürnberg (aka Nuremberg). Unfortunately, Nuremberg was the city I ended up with the least amount of time in due to the length of the train trip there. This was unfortunate because after Dresden, it was my second favorite city on the trip. I only had about a day and half to wander around, so I focused on just visiting all of the old city (there are a few streets cars can use here and there, but nearly the entire old city is one giant pedestrian zone).

Nuremberg is another instance of Germany going to great lengths to rebuild and restore old buildings that were destroyed during World War II. In January 1945, the old medieval city center was systematically bombed by the Allies with 90% of it being destroyed in roughly an hour. Yet it's been exquisitely restored. To give you an idea of just how much damage was done, you can check out this map on Wikipedia. If you check the legend below, the red indicates a total loss.

Today, as you wander around the old town, it's a great place to visit. Lots of rebuilt older buildings. Lots of people wandering around. Lots of restaurants, cafe's, and shops. It's very cool. Nuremberg also reminded me of Poznan in that as I was wandering around I noticed that a large percentage of the people I was seeing were young adults. And after chatting with some locals, I was told that Nuremberg (like Poznan), is a big college city and that a large proportion of the population is college age.

It was an interesting city to visit, and one that I might try and go back to if the opportunity presents. I know I only saw the old city, and that there were a number of places I had to skip over due to time constraints.

Anyway, on to the pictures. :)

The Imperial Castle is located at the very Northern end of the old town on a promontory. It's a bit of hike up a slope to see it and the picture above is looking up at one of the main buildings from the path up. The Castle was one of the more important fortified palaces of the Holy Roman Empire, and was the home of kings up through at least the 30-years war.

This picture is looking down at one of the square's below the Castle. You can see that one of the towers was being restored/repaired. This also gives you an idea of how much higher the Castle is than the city level below.

This is the tower and one of the gates leading into the Castle.

After the age of cannons, when it was thought that the Castle was unlikely to face a serious attack, the spaces between the outer walls were filled in and turned into a series of gardens that stretch around two of the four sides of the Castle.