Chapter 13 - A Christmas Adventure

The Christmas Adventure to Nuremberg
(Week: Monday 30th November - Sunday 6th December)

So, this was the week of our adventure to Nuremberg for the Christmas Market. But, before that, let me just consider if anything as exciting happened before that....err.....not really! The week was made up of school (obviously), talking German, watching TV, going out with friends and having a few drinks...what could be better!?!

So, to the weekend then. We'd originally planned to leave about 6.50 on Friday morning on a cheap group ticket that Deutsche Bahn offer; but there was a slight hitch with this cunning plan! We hadn't realised that the tickets weren't valid until after 9am...but being resourceful and quick-thinking we managed to re-jig it so we could catch the 08.52 train. How could you do this, I hear you ask...well, if you've been reading throroughly (and I hope you have, there'll be a quiz at the end of the year!), you'll know that I signed up to the University of Saarland in order to gain free travel within our little Bundesland...so, even though Saarland is small, it's not quite possible to leave it in less than 8 minutes, so until 9 we travelled on our uni cards!

So, we all met at about 8.30 at the train station and bought the tickets, and got on our means of transport for the next few hours! The train wasn't overly busy, so we had seats for the whole journey to Frankfurt without any problems. What's more, the train was punctual, which I know you think is normal in Germany, but by the end of this blog entry, I'm sure I'll be able to persuade you that it's not too different to how it is at home!

We arrived in Frankfurt at about 11.45. We'd planned to have a bit of time wandering round Frankfurt, seeing what it had to offer. According to Wikipedia, which means it is definitely right, Frankfurt is the only city in Germany to have a significant number of Skyscrapers. It currently has 10, and has two more under construction. It is also Germany's fifth biggest city, and was not chosen as the capital of the FRG (former West Germany) because the officials feared that it would be too difficult to move it back to Berlin if they put it in such a big and important city...so Bonn got it.

In Frankfurt, we walked down to the river, surprisingly called the Main (given that the full name for Frankfurt, is Frankfurt am Main), which was very nice and quite picturesque. Frankfurt, is definitely a financial town, and it is in the financial district (or in German, the Bankenviertel) where you'll find the majority of the skyscrapers. Now, being as I'm a rural country bumpkin from the Westcoun'ry, I've not seen many skyscrapers in my life...so, they were pretty impressive, and it really brings home the scale of devastation that was inflicted on New York City on that fateful Tuesday 8 years ago. We also had a look in the Cathedral in Frankfurt, which had, almost certainly, been rebuilt after the War. The Cathedral was smaller than I imagined it would be, but was pleasant and quite pretty inside.

There was, of course, a Christmas Market in Frankfurt, but we decided to largely ignore it because we were travelling on to the home of the biggest Christmas Market in Germany, so it would have been a little bit of a disappointment. On a more pragmatic note, the stuff we bought, we would have had to carry for the next two days, this seemed a little silly; our bags were quite heavy enough as it was!

So, we headed back to the Hauptbahnhof for our train at 13.30. A brief note about the Hauptbahnhof in Frankfurt, it's pretty big, as we found out on Saturday (more about that later, if you've not got too bored and gone to read e-mails or watch TV). It's huge, with over 20 platforms, all of which are covered over by a massive arched roof. (Think Paddington, or Temple Meads...and then enlarge it!)

We got on our train, which went direct to Nuremberg, and would get in about 17.20, so just under 4 hours later. But I found out some of the timetables I'd printed prior to departure, and realised if we changed this train at Wuerzburg, we could catch another train and get there about 50 minutes earlier! So, obviously, this is what we did. The train from Wuerzburg left about 10 minutes later, but went a different way, so we arrived at the town where our hotel was about 16.20.

Fuerth is a lot bigger than it appeared on GoogleMaps; it's more like a town than a suburb (which is what we originally thought it was!) - it's got it's own Registration Plate code - so it must be a town! We checked into the hotel, which was very impressive, the rooms were more than just rooms! They had a sitting room area, including a sofa, which, if we'd realised, someone could have slept on and saved us the cost of a room! Nevertheless, it was a very nice place to stay. We decided that, it would be worth going into Nuremberg in the evening, so that we could go the Tourist Information and get a map, and have a look at the Christmas Market. So, we trotted off to the Bahnhof in Fuerth, and caught a train to Nuremberg - a journey of a whole 6 minutes!

When we arrived in Nuremberg, the first challenge, which wouldn't have seemed out of place in the Krypton Factor, or the Crystal Maze, was trying to get out of the station. It seemed to me a maze of passageways and shopping areas, with so many different signs. To give you some sort of idea of size of Nuremberg Hauptbahnhof; it has 25 platforms, two underground stations, trams from outside it, as long as buses too! It's truly impressive, and makes Saarbruecken look more like Chippenham!

But, we did eventually manage to get out of the station, and emerged into a random street in Nuremberg, just in the old town, which, by pure fluke, was right opposite the Tourist Information Centre. Now, seeing as it was only about 5ish, the office was still open, so we went in there and got a free map of the city, and headed on down to the Christmas Market.

"WOW!" is the only word that I feel can accurately sum up the Christmas Market in Nuremberg. As you walk down the main street into the old town, everything looks so Christmassy (for the benefit of my sister, Christmassy is a word....because I said so), but not plastic and garishly Christmassy like it is usually in the UK, but more plain, yet classy than at home. To borrow the advert of a well-known retailer, "This isn't just Christmas, this is a German Christmas" (My apologies if this isn't the advert anymore...it damned well was in August, and they've got no right changing it!). There are very few coloured Christmas lights, and even fewer illuminated pictures; everything is just plain white lights, some flashing, but not normally, and it just sort of works...it is, for me, pretty much exactly how I imagine Christmas should be done! You can see some photos of it on the link at the end of the entry. (Don't scroll there now...read through the rest of this first, otherwise the pictures won't mean as much to you!)

We walked round the Christmas Market, which was much nicer than the others I've visited; I'm not entirely sure I can explain why, but it just was! We learnt, eventually, the reason there were some queues at some stalls...these stalls were sellign Gluehwein (Mulled Wine), or food (most commonly sausages - we are in Germany, after all!). So, we spent a couple of hours wandering round the stalls, deciding what we wanted to buy. We didn't buy much on Friday, for much the same reason as we didn't buy anything in Frankfurt, we would have to carry it for the whole day on Saturday! After going round the main Christmas Market, we had a look at the stalls selling stuff from Nuremberg's Twin Towns and Sister Cities (I've just noticed how much unintentional alliteration and assonance was used in that sentence!)...now when we consider that Nuremberg's British sister city is Glasgow; what do we think they were selling...whisky (obviously), hot toddies, shortbread along with lots and lots of tartan!

After that part of the market, we headed over to the Children's Christmas Market, as, let's face it, we're pretty much all children at heart! We had a look around the things there; mainly serving food, and offering the chance to get your photo taken with a slightly annoyed looking Santa Clause. Oh, and on top of that, you could ride on a carousel too...which we did...it was a slight squeeze...I'm not sure the cup we were in was designed for three 20 year olds!

After the slightly tight ride, we headed back towards Nuremberg station, and then tried to find our platform. Once we'd managed that little challenge, we went back to our hotel, and set about planning what we wanted to see in Nuremberg on Saturday. Once we'd sorted out a plan, we all retired to bed and prepared is for the long, but exciting day to come!


So, after meeting at 8, we checked out of our hotel and headed off to the station to go back to Nuremberg for our day of sightseeing. Once we got to Nuremberg, I resumed my function as Mapman and handled the navigation side of things, and we started our walking tour of Bavaria's second city. The first thing we came across was the Opera House, situated in Richard Wagner Place. From there we headed back towards the Old Town area in Nuremberg, including looking at the Holy Spirit Hospital (Heilig Geist Spital), which was all but destroyed, along with a large number of other buildings in the city, by the allies during World War Two. We walked on, up the hill, to the Imperial Castle, from where the view across the skyline of Nuremberg was very nice. We then walked down towards the centre of the city, coming across Albrecht Durer's House. At the time, none of us had absolutely any idea who this bloke was; since returning though, it turns out he was a medieval philospher, artist, and general thinker.

After a short detour, we found ourselves coming back towards St. Sebaldus Church, inside which there was a display about the effect that the War had on the church; and how it was rebuilt and renovated since 1945. From there, we went in search of heat, in the form of a hot drink. In a rather untypically English manner, I have failed to mention the weather in Nuremberg on Saturday. It was very cold, and there was a bitter wind too, which didn't help, but it didn't rain, so I was thankful for that! After our hot drinks, we headed over to Frauenkirche (The Church of Our Lady), which finds itself in the centre of the Old City, at the head of the Market Square. This church was less impressive, and was being used by the organist for her practice, which I would say she needs quite a bit more of, using my rather (i.e. very) limited knowledge of playing the organ. On the way back to the Bahnhof to do the other places we wanted to visit, we went into Lorenzkirche, which was an unusual combination of a church that was originally built as a Catholic church, and then after the Lutherian period, became a Protestant church, and the inside of the church has this unusual combination throughout.

Now, you may think that I've forgotten about Nuremberg's slightly darker history...quite the contrary, the Third Reich period in German history genuinely fascinates me, and has done for about the last 10 years! We were all agreed, that it would be a complete waste of a trip, if we didn't go out to the Nazi Party Rally Area, which, luckily, was available using the normal railway (and as such free!). We walked out to the Kongresshalle (Congress Hall), which was started but never finished, because the Nazi's stopped holding rallies in 1938. In fact, they were due to hold a Party Rally in Nuremberg on the 2nd September 1939, the day after the invasion of Poland, and before Britain declared war. This Rally was, ironically, to be called the Congress for Peace.

The first thing that struck me about the Congress Hall, was, simply, it's size...it's huge and very imposing (there are quite a few pictures of it on the link at the end of the entry). There's an exhibition in the Documentation Centre (€2,50 for students...bargain) explaining the rise and fall of the Nazis, and the role Nuremberg played in it. It was done in a very honest, and frank manner, not shying away from any areas of the Third Reich or what went on under that regime. When we left, our mood had changed slightly, we were much more reflective for a while, we had a discussion about the Nazis, and how they were able to come to power, and get away with the things they did.

After walking over to the rally square, where the parades were held (Zeppelinfeld), we headed back into Nuremberg to buy the things we wanted from the Christmas Market. Now, when we visited the night before, it was busy, but absolutely nothing compared to how it was about 2 o'clock on a Saturday. Now, I've never been shopping in London, but to put it into some sort of context, we came to the conclusion that it was like trying to walk down Oxford Street on Christmas Eve....i.e. nigh on impossible! It was stressful, and certainly not as much fun, or as Christmassy as the night before! But, despite these challenges, we got the things we wanted to get and headed back to the nearest underground station.

We decided that we ought to deal with Nuremberg's dark history in chronological order, so after seeing the Nazi monuments and displays, we headed out to the Justizpalast (Courthouse), which is the one used during the Nuremberg Trials. The Nuremberg Trials were the trials of Nazis who were accused of various war crimes; including leading Nazis such as Hermann Goering, and Karl Doenitz, and were presided over by 4 judges, one from each of the occupying powers (USA, UK, USSR, and France - in case you were struggling!). Unfortunately up until last year the Courthouse used to provide tours about the Nuremberg Trials, and from next year there will be a museum about it...this year, though, there was nothing. So, we took some photos from outside and headed back to the main train station.

The train journey back should have been fine. The plan was to leave Nuremberg at 16.04, and have a 15 minute changeover in Wuerzburg, before heading to Frankfurt, where we had a one hour connection to make (not planned to be so long, but it would be long enough to have a nice sit-down meal, so it worked out quite well), and then we'd head back to Saarbruecken, arriving back at 23.11. That was the plan...it would appear, we were not going to be lucky. The train arrived into Wuerzburg about 5 minutes late, which wasn't a major issue because we had 10 minutes to walk across a platform to the other side...we could have hopped it in that time! As it happens though our train coming in was delayed by about 5 minutes, again not a problem, we had plenty of time in Frankfurt. As it happens, our train arrived into Wuerzburg about 15 minutes late, and left about 20 minutes late...still plenty of time. But somehow during this 1 hour and 49 minute journey, we managed to get later and later, until we arrived in Frankfurt a total of 55 minutes late! Now, if you remember, we had a one hour connection in Frankfurt, with this delay, we now had 5 minutes, yes 5 minutes. We also needed to buy some food, as we hadn't eaten since about 3, and were getting in at 11. We decided that as there was a later, although less direct, train we could catch if necessary, we would buy food there and then run for the train - there was no point in dawdling. Hmm...we did run...we got some odd looks, and nearly had a couple of collisions with innocent people. But we managed to buy sandwiches, and get to our train (which was 17 platforms away!) before it left. I'm not sure how we managed this in 5 minutes, and I would strongly advise against it...especially as the station was full of Polizei cuddling riot helmets for the arrival of some football fans! But nevertheless, we made it...and then we were on our way back. The train journey back was also running late, somehow it had accrued a 7 minute delay, thus meaning I had to run again in order to catch the bus home!

Still, it was truly an adventure, and a fantastic couple of days; we had a lot of fun, felt more Christmassy, saw a different area of Germany, which was substiantially more Germanic than my little corner of the Federal Republic, we even did some strenuous exercise in the station.

Now, as I promised: Here is the link for the photos!