Week 43: Nuremberg

Another late and quick update! Last weekend, we finally made it to another city on our short list: Nuremberg. The kids had a long weekend from school, so on Friday we made the two hour drive to the city.

Our first stop in Nuremberg was the site of Hitler’s infamous Nuremberg rallies. The main museum, the Documentation Center, is undergoing renovation but we were able to check out the smaller exhibits they had on display, which gave a good enough overview of the meaning of the events held here in the 1930s. Brooklyn is coming up on the WW2 unit in her history class so it was a good introduction to the topic.

After the museum, we drove around and toured the grounds which included a huge parade route, the grandstand and rally arena, Zeppelin Field, and Hitler’s planned Kongresshalle, which was never finished. All of the sites were pretty decrepit and grown over. In a time where the events in Ukraine are on everyone’s minds, it is a small comfort to see what eventually comes of megalomaniacs and their plans.

Afterwards, we headed into downtown Nuremberg. Since we had to head back to Stuttgart early the following morning, we hit the ground running in order to check everything off our list. We walked about four miles around the Altstadt over the course of the day. We started with lunch at the Marktplatz where we had a chance to try Nuremberger sausages.

Brooklyn started the day with her favorite, a Schokolade-Apfel

After lunch, we headed to the Kasierburg, or Imperial Castle, which was the Holy Roman Emperor’s seat of power in the German region of Franconia. At the castle, we checked out multiple viewpoints of the city from the castle ramparts, as well as the Castle Tower.

We also got a demonstration at one of Germany’s deepest wells, which in true German fashion is called “Tiefer Brunnen,” aka ‘Deep Well.’ The shaft is over 50 meters deep and the curator gave us a demonstration of how water is poured into it and then you wait several seconds before you hear it hit the bottom. (It was much cooler than I’m making it sound). Afterwards, we got roped into a palace tour, which we had planned on skipping. The tour was actually pretty good and there was tons of medieval armor on display, which made Ryan a happy boy.

View of Nuremberg from the castle ramparts

After we were done at the castle, we wandered back down through the Altstadt. The weather was gorgeous and of course, there was not an outdoor seat to be found in any Biergarten or cafe.

We continued our walk and saw the two main churches, St. Lorenz’s Church and the Frauenkirche, and many of Nuremberg’s famous bridges over the Pegnitz River.

Finally, at the end of the day, we found some free seats at a cafe and had end-of-the-day drinks. The cafe also had a “fried foods platter” that we decided to try. It ended up being enough for dinner for all of us.

Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel, the Sheraton Carlton, which was another awesome Marriott stay. The rooms were huge and the hotel had an indoor rooftop pool overlooking the city. The best part was the M Club at the hotel, which gave us free snacks, Happy Hour, dinner, and breakfast.

Saturday morning, we headed back to Stuttgart because Ryan had a birthday party to attend and we had to pick up the dogs.

On Sunday, we headed to Badeparadies Schwarzwald, a huge indoor water park, similar to a Great Wolf Lodge in the US. Germans love indoor water parks and we have several within a driveable distance; this was our first.

The theme of Badeparadies is “Caribbean in the Black Forest,” and they pretty much hit the nail on the head. There are two sides to the water park; the adult side and the kids side. The adults’ side has fine dining and a biergarten. However, it’s also “textile free” which means you’re required to go in the nude. They hide that part pretty well as the only things we saw were the door; the rest was well hidden behind lots of hedges and foliage. We stayed over on the kids side and the kids wore themselves out on the slides and in the wave pool. Within the kids’ area, there was a quiet, greenhouse-style lounge area for adults, where lots of people were laying out, sunning themselves.