Nuremberg

 

JUNE 24

Cool and breezy, but pleasant; the dawn is gathering and lighting up a pastel blue sky with a few bumpy clouds, which might become pink in a few minutes, with any luck.  The Canal is a mirror.  Passing an industrial site, but can hear a Eurasian Blackcap and Common Chiffchaff according to Merlin, but I think Merlin is having me on about the Chiffchaff.

And a great blue heron – or something very close to it – flies by past us, silently.  Suddenly we're on the Erie Canal for a moment.  A single bicyclist approaches and passes us, tiny light shining.  

It's just before 5AM on moving day.  I put my suitcase and cane in its case outside the room as I left.  Luggage out by 7:30; we all leave a 8:30 for Nuremberg.  City tour, lunch at a restaurant in the city center, then board buses across the square, and three and a half hours on the bus to Passau, on the Danube.  We'll miss the corner again.

Last night, when we were dropped off in a little town short of Bamberg, the ship sailed on to meet us in Bamberg.  This has been the pattern for all of our stops except Koblenz.  But this time, when we returned to the ship, it had already turned into the Main-Danube Canal, the third of the great waterways we would be sailing.  Bamberg is at the limit of navigation of the Main River, and it's where you turn right into the Main-Danube Canal to continue on to the Danube.  And the ship turned the corner without us!

It was neat to be watching when we turned from the Rhine to the Main the other day.  That was the first great turn; the second we missed in Bamberg, and the third we will miss because we will take a bus from Nuremberg, on the Canal, to Passau, on the Danube.  No more great turns.  Bummer!

Time to work on lines.

Later – the sun is up, just.  We are following a four-lane highway into an urban area – first we could hear it faintly, then more loudly, and then it was right there beside us, on the shore.  Everyone on their way to work.  Soon we're crossing a viaduct – the canal travels above the landscape.  Usually when this happens, it goes over a river or a highway, but here... nothing much.  A swamp?  Huge transmission wires run across the Canal and away east and west.

And we're passing a pretty big glass pyramid.  Yep, that's what it is, just like the one on the banks of the Mississippi at Memphis, housing a Bass Pro Shops or some such, and the one above the entrance to the Louvre.  This one?  Who knows.  We seem to be on the outskirts of town – a modern city – TV tower and smokestacks, and some taller buildings approaching.

Miles of highway and trees.  Canal, embankment, highway, trees to the left.  Grafitti on the embankment, including a big “Free All Antifas.”  Trees on the right, with the occasional apartment building or smokestack peeking over the top.  Being a Canal, and not a river, the waterway is straight for long periods, then turns, and straight again.

Konigsbad?  Just north of Nuremberg, with a highway along the Canal.  I hate not having clear, accurate, comprehensive maps.  Urban/industrial on the right; dense forest on the left.  A little further, same thing but opposite sides.  Concrete or steel walls most of the time; straight as an arrow.  The Canal is interesting – manmade, as noted, and I'd like to take some time to explore and think about the differences.  But – off the boat soon, and later on, the Danube.

Off the boat, onto another bus, and it's Nuremberg day.  The tour started as soon as the bus did, and it turned out to be about an hour-long bus tour followed by an hour+ walking tour of the old town.  This was one of the best – and exhausting – tours of the day.

Our guide was excellent – a scholar who had been doing this for over twenty years (as opposed to our guide yesterday, who was probably twenty years old).  He had the tour down pat, but he always sounded spontaneous and he was always informative and interesting.  

I'd love to have a transcript of his tour.  It would be too long for anyone else to get through, but it was so dense with interesting stuff I wish I had it to refer to.  So, instead of pages of Nuremberg history, you'll have to be satisfied with a few things that I found... well, interesting isn't the right word.  Because two of the three are Nazi stuff.

But first – the castle!  Really cool.  Nuremberg is built on a hill and there's a smaller hill on top, where the castle is.  It was built in the 1400s (“it took the whole 15th century to build”) and integrated all the latest castle technology of the time.  Without boring you with long lists, suffice it to say that no one successfully stormed the castle until WWII (you're never far from WWII in Germany).  The Nazis barricaded themselves in there and the Allies couldn't defeat 15th century defensive technology, so they threatened to just bomb the whole thing to kingdom come, and everyone came to an agreement.

Speaking of coming to an agreement, in the 1600's, when Protestants were killing Catholics and vice-versa, some Swiss mercenaries were holding the fort (go figure) against a Catholic army.  After a long siege, both sides ran out of resources, and they decided that they'd meet on a field outside of town and have the battle there.  So they did that, and the result was a draw, “and they all went on to the next one,” says our guide.  War!  Huh! Good god, y'all, what is it good for?  Absolutely nothing!  Say it, say it say it... (Edwin Starr)

Nazi history in Nuremberg is more sobering than cool.  We all know of Nuremberg as the place where the war crimes trials were held – where the highest-ranking Nazis, who were responsible for the war and all the horrors associated with the war, were tried by the Allies after the war was over.  Twelve of them were hung; three served life, four served long sentences but not life, and three were acquitted.  A tiny bit of justice for millions and millions of lives snuffed out.  

Anyway, we drove past the Nuremberg Palace of Justice where the trials were held, actually in an annex building connected to the side of the main building, in Courtroom 600, which is no longer used.  Just seeing it was a jolt; I felt like I was transported in time to post-war Germany, and waiting for a verdict.  I felt like I was standing outside the courtroom and everyone – all of them – were inside.   In some ways, the German people were on trial here as well; it must have been awful.

But that was after the end of the war, and it was justice being done for crimes against humanity.  The other iconic Nazi location is also well-known, but not all of us know it was in Nuremberg.

If you've seen any documentaries about the Nazis or WWII, you've seen the September rallies at Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg, with Hitler speaking from the grandstand which was topped with a gold swastika.  The rallies were held in Nuremburg in September (because it was the month with the least rain) from 1933 to 1938.  In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland and started WWII, so from then on, the troops had other things to do.  As many as 800,000 people from all over Germany (which was bigger then) attended the rallies.

I have seen the documentaries.  They are horrifically riveting, especially since they were expertly filmed, by German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's documentarian.  

We drove past the grandstand today, which still stands, and the bus turned around to let those on the other side see it too.  Once again, I was transported to a horrifying spectacle, personally there for a second, surrounded by chanting hundreds of thousands, cheering for fascism.  It was a visceral reaction that left me a little breathless – and certainly speechless.  Never again!

Our walking tour started at the castle, which was a real climb, then descended into the old town where, among other things, we saw the home of Albrecht Dürer, whose most famous work is “Praying Hands,” which we have all seen.  He was painting at about the same time the work on the castle was beginning.  Past the cathedral, down to the market square (Nuremberg has the biggest Christmas Market in Germany).  A colorful and ornate fountain in one corner - the 14th century Schöner Brunnen (Beautiful Fountain) - a source of water for centuries and now a decoration.  The “Ship of Fools” statue – everyone sailing in different directions.  Many stalls with identical red and white canvas sides and roofs, mostly with produce that was almost unbelievably fresh and colorful – where do they get all this in the spring, so far from harvest season?  I imagine acres of greenhouses, industrial agriculture.  There were many stalls, chock full of beautiful vegetables that will be beautiful for only a couple of days (especially in this heat, and no refrigeration) – is there really a market for all this?  There were also falafel, shawarma and pizza stands, as well as gingerbread, apparently a locally famous product.  Our guide mentioned pretzel sandwiches, and Abbey was intrigued, but we never found them.  What do you put into a pretzel sandwich?

We spent our limited free time exploring the market, and stopped into the Frauenkirche, also on the square.  It was built in the 14th century and “is one of Nuremberg's most important churches,” according to Wikipedia.  Inside it is a single blocky space, with a short nave and soaring stone pillars; a Gothic church – not a cathedral – like so many others.  It felt very sparse, except for the interesting art around the interior, and a big, very modern pipe organ off to one side.  I was especially taken with the altarpiece, a triptych called the Tucher Altar painted in the fifteenth century by an artist whose name is, apparently, lost to history.  It was originally installed in another church in Nuremberg, then moved to another one, and came to Frauenkirche relatively recently.  It's an intricate and moody piece; much of it seems to be gold leaf and, for that reason, I had originally wondered if it were a Klimt.

On the way out, we passed a booth with an elderly lady in it – an information booth?  Abbey asked her if the church had been damaged in the war.  She had – are you surprised? - pictures.  Pictures in plastic sleeves, suggesting that they were shown around a lot.  Sure enough, the church had lost a tower and most of it looked damaged.  The lady spoke no English but, as usual, Abbey seemed to be able to communicate.  She seemed pleased to be able to answer our questions.

We ate lunch at a big restaurant with lots of flowers and dark wood, just off the square and on the river.  It was noisy, and I felt that the food was pretty standard fare (we're all spoiled by the exceptional food on the ship).  Tossed salad first, with German potato salad which was pretty good, then the main course, which was a bunch of Nuremberg sausages, little things “about the size of a pinky,” and some tasty sauerkraut.  Each of us got about seven or eight sausages, which was too many; no one finished them all.  Dessert was ice cream, which Abbey and I didn't eat as we had a long bus ride coming up and didn't want our systems upset.  A good white wine, and a not-so-good red.

Then back across the square, down another street to the bus.  The street had a big figure of a knight on the corner of a building, who happened to be pointing in the direction of the bus, so we shouldn't get lost.  Then three and a half hours on the bus, with a stop at a highway rest stop McDonalds – 181 people descending on two small restrooms.  The result was as you might expect.  During the trip, Abbey and I dozed and read.

And then we were coming down the hill to a view of Passau across the river; our road clung to the shore below a steep hill.  The city is beautiful, with two large churches, well-kept, colorful buildings and houses and an interesting skyline.  We used a couple of tunnels through the hillside.  We passed a pedestrian and bicycle bridge stretching from Passau over to our side; it crossed our road and went right into a tunnel.  Then downriver past the city, and there was our ship – our new ship, same as the old ship.  We were welcomed on board enthusiastically, found our new rooms – same as the old – and there was our luggage.  We unpacked and went up to the front deck to claim our seat for dinner.

Dinner was great; the red pepper tart stood out.  Then up on the roof deck to talk, admire the view, write the journal, and for Abbey to talk with the people on the roof deck of the ship tied up next to us; more on that later.

And then to bed in a new ship on a new river.

ADDENDUM:  It's August, and I'm slowly transforming a bunch of e-mails into an illustrated online travel journal.  As I think I've mentioned before, this is an enjoyable process, 

Nuremburg

Frauenkirche

Fort	Frauenkirche	St. Lorenz, completed in 15th century, heavily damaged in WWII, restored	Lunch
Forgot this guy!  The tour pulled up here, and I sat down on the stone podium (long day, steep walks) behind the guide, who said, "...and then there's this embarrassing monstrosity...," turned around and pointed right at me (and the statue).  A good time was had by all.  It's Der Hase (The Rabbit): "A sculpture of a gigantic goggle-eyed hare is portrayed as having fallen hard upon and smashed open a wooden box from which spills a horde of numerous tiny and demonic-looking rabbits. Look closely and you will see that crushed beneath this heavyweight hare lies a person, whose lifeless hand can be seen outstretched from beneath the animal's colossal bulk." (Atlas Obscura)