Jul 28 – Nuremberg, Germany

Last updated on August 12th, 2019 at 11:55 pm

Our day started early today as our luggage had to be in the corridor by 7 a.m. We are very grateful Viking staff will be loading, transporting and delivering our luggage to our next ship and stateroom. We ate breakfast with the ladies from Alberta, Canada and said goodbye again to Ghil and Jackson. We stood in the reception area crowded with people and luggage for about 15 minutes until our buses were ready to depart.

We have about a 3 hour bus ride to Nuremburg and our new ship, the Viking Magni. Our guide on the bus is Alexis, born in Nuremburg to Russian immigrant parents. We were able to experience the Autobahn, where passenger cars have no speed limit; however, buses and semi-trucks do. We stopped for a water closet break at about the halfway point and had about 30 minutes to take care of necessities and stretch our legs. The bus was comfortable but did not have enough room to set up an iPad and keyboard or laptop to blog. We took the opportunity to nap.

We arrived at the Magni about 11:45 a.m., were greeted with a cool wash cloth and went straight to lunch. As expected, our staterooms were not ready. We had a feeling of dejavu as the Magni is almost the same as the Baldur, but there are little differences and a different crew. We found ourselves noticing tiny differences that gave us a slightly unsettled feeling. As we finished our lunch, it was announced our staterooms were ready. We expected to wait until after our excursion to have access to our stateroom, so this was good news. We didn’t have luggage yet, but we were able to take things we would need on our excursion out of backpack and leave in the room.

The first part of our tour of Nuremburg was a bus tour. We drove by a building where Nazi SS stayed when they were in Nuremburg. The SS (Schutzstaffel – protection squadron, a major para-military organization) was the foremost agency of security, surveillance and terror within Germany and German occupied Europe. The Nazi party used Nuremburg as their staging ground for their show of strength and propaganda. The SS building is now the Department of Immigration, which our local guide said was a good thing as it was probably making Hitler turn over in his grave. We also drove by Zeppeling Field where the Nazi military parades took place as well as The Kongresshalle, which Hitler intended to build 1 1/2 times bigger than the Colosseum in Rome, but the Kongresshalle was never finished. It is interesting that these places pertaining to the Nazis are called ruins and have not been restored. The German people don’t want to romanticize these areas and according to more than one local guide struggle with how to preserve these sites (or if they should) without creating a shrine that could encourage this mindset in the future. We also drove by the Palace of Justice, where war crime trials of Nazi officers were held. The Nazis called it the Palace of Justice, After the war, the Allies called it the Palace of Injustice. When the trials began, it was once again called the Palace of Justice. It is still used by the courts today.

On our way to the Old Town, we passed a large cemetery with beautiful flowers on every grave. Our guide explained that people rent space in the cemetery for a yearly fee. With the fee, you agree to maintain the grave including the flowers. If your family stopped paying rent or everyone you knew was not longer alive to pay the rent, the grave was opened and your remains removed to a bone box with the grave site rented to someone else.

We exited the bus to begin our walking tour of the Old City near the city wall, of which several miles it still intact. The city walls are not straight, but have a star shape, with the ramp to the city gate uphill and curved so the momentum needed to effectively use a battering ram was difficult to achieve. The star shape aided in protection against cannon balls. We made our way across the moat and up into the Imperial Castle that was begun in the 11th century. A major part of the city’s medieval defenses were 80 towers, several of which are still part of present-day Nuremburg. While strolling the castle grounds we were treated to an overlook of the city. It looked very medieval, with the many red tile roofs. Because Nuremburg was a an important place for the Nazi party, it was heavily bombed with about 90% of the city destroyed. In part the Marshall plan was responsible for the reconstruction we saw.

We walked out of the castle area and down a fairly steep cobble stone street toward the Main Square. On our way we stopped outside the Albrecht Dürer house. Dürer, born in Nuremburg, was a painter, printmaker, and theorist of the German Renaissance, during the late 15th and early 16th century. Nearly all the portraits of him were self-portraits and he looks a little like Jesus which may have been his intention. We also saw a picture he painted of a rabbit, with was very detailed.

We continued on into the Main Market Square and stopped at a filigree, spire-like “Lovely Fountain”. We heard the legend that the sculptor’s apprentice wanted to marry the sculptor’s daughter, but the father didn’t think him worthy. The apprentice included a golden ring that turned within the railing around the fountain. The sculptor was impressed and gave his blessing to the marriage and anyone who finds and turns the ring with be granted their wish. Alan found and turned the ring, so we shall see! 🙂

We were given about an hour and a half of free time. There was an annual music festival going on in the square with stages set up an various locations, musicians playing on street corners, food vendor booths and lots and lots of people. It was all a little overwhelming for Joyce. We started with going into St. Sebald Church. While the part of Germany we are in is predominantly Catholic, Nuremburg and the area (Franconia) is Lutheran. It is Nuremburg’s oldest church, built around 1215 as a three-aisled Late Romanesque pillared basilica with two choirs. As early as 1309 the original side aisles were widened and altered in the Gothic style. It was destroyed during World War II and rebuilt in 1957. Some of the original stained glass from the windows were removed and stored with other art treasures before that bombing and have been returned making up a portion of the windows.

On the other side of the square is the Frauenkirche (“Church of Our Lady”), a Catholic church. An example of brick Gothic architecture, it was built on the initiative of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor between 1352 and 1362. The church contains many sculptures, some of them heavily restored.

Though we didn’t sample the beer, which almost every local guide in every city we have visited so far highly recommend, we sample some local favorites. The first was “drei im weckla” which is 3 small Nuremburg sausages in a bun. Joyce tried her half with mustard as suggested and it was very tasty. The other local delicacy was a giant pretzel, as big as both of Joyce’s hands. We nibbled on it as we walked around looking in shop windows and listening to street musicians.

Our free time drew to a close and we walked back to the buses which took us back to the ship. We spend a few minutes unpacking and felt settled in. We attended the port talk to learn about our visit to Bamberg and went to dinner. We chose to eat just the two of us and began to get to know the dining staff of the Magni. Jackie and Brian were our waiters and Allan, the dining maitre de, stopped by our table to welcome us.

This evening we have live entertainment, three singers and a piano player. They sang a variety of classical solos and duets, mostly from operas. The pianist was an amazing musician, but unfortunately was a not so funny comedian. The show lasted about an hour.