Nuremburg

We think we might be getting the hang of navigating with the GPS unit. We say this, because we aren’t arguing as much, or even at all when we drive somewhere. This was the case for Nuremburg. Being a big city in Germany it was easy for us to pick this as a pit stop on our way to Regensburg. Finding the free stellplatz was extremely easy; in fact we only had to drive for 3 blocks before we were parked. It was further away from the town center than another one, but it was free. Located in a park parking lot, we felt safe, had a nice view, and at first only had a few neighbors, and it also had public washrooms. Completely ideal for our stay. We walked into town after having a delicious meal of instant noodle spicy Thai soup, pate and cheese on baguette and crackers. I then strapped on the pack and Julie and I started our 2 km hike into town. We had two tourist offices to choose from, but our guide book recommended the one furthest from where we parked. The first market square we came into was the Hauptmarkt where we got to see the impressive Pfarrkirche Unsere Liebe Frau church. Apparently the figures atop the church dance around at noon, but we didn’t stay another day to witness this. We took some pictures and walked through the different vendors looking for any good deals, Julie is still looking for a suitable plant to put in the van to soak up some of the humidity and brighten up the place; I think the van shakes too much for a plant, so we will see. After that we made our way towards the recommended tourist office (we actually saw the other one first, by the church) passing many statues and fountains along the way. We came across a street performer making a marionette dance to music as well. We always enjoy coming across street performers, though I imagine the locals wouldn’t care for them much. The town map listed all the important sites to see, there were quite a few of them so we narrowed it down to the free ones. The first stop took us outside of the city center by about 10 meters, as we needed to cross a bridge. The city center is surrounded by a wall which we got to see when we made our way over to the medieval area. Extremely small shops and alleys, all with tourist shops and medieval themed stores made up the area. We stopped in one shop looking at wine goblets trying to find metal ones that would work for us; the only problem is that they are all too small. We did come across some nice metal plates but decided not to tempt ourselves with a price, more wandering in other stores around the center led us to the same plates and they were selling for 200 euros each. We stopped by another church and a few more fountains before we made our way back to the van. That night we decided that we would visit the Dokumentation zentrum the following morning. We ended up spending four and half hours visiting this museum learning more about the Nazi’s and what was going on in Germany before and during Hitlers reign. It took so much out of us because of the mass of information being thrown at us but we both agreed that it was entirely worth the visit. It also gave us a view of the war that isn’t taught in school. It was getting late so we decided to head to Regensburg and eat at the campsite we intended to stay at while visiting Anna for her belated birthday party.