Germany Day 2 - Munich/Nuremberg

Day 2 - Dec 6

Munich Frauenkirche

Munich Frauenkirche

Munich Glockenspiel

Day 2 we woke up and decided to see a bit more of Munich before heading to Nuremberg.  We hopped on the subway and headed back to the city center. First we visited the Frauenkirche which is the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Munich (to be honest I don't know what that means...). Honestly, the interior of the church wasn't all that impressive compared to other's we've visited.  On the outside, the church is quite noticeable in Munich due to it's two tall towers.  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frauenkirche_(Munich)


After walking around the town a bit, at 11 am we stopped back at the Marienplatz (with lots of other tourists) to watch the Glockenspiel. The intricate display was finished in the early 1900s in honor of one of the Dukes' marriages. Every day at 11:00, 12:00 and 17:00 the clock does a 12 minute show which was pretty neat.  If you check out my Picasa web album I took a few minutes of video.  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rathaus-Glockenspiel

St. Peter's church - I was accosted by a church member
just after taking this picture...

After that we headed over to St. Peter's church near the city center.  From the outside the cathedral doesn't really impress, but inside it was quite amazing.  I was able to snap a few quick pictures before promptly being told no pictures during mass (we went back a few hours later to get some better snaps but they were still having mass!!).  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Peter's_Church_(Munich)


For our last Munich stop we headed to the Medieval market for a bit of medieval lunch. The entire market was put together in a medieval theme with all of the vendors wearing traditional medieval clothing.  There were even stands with people selling medieval weaponry, armor and clothing amongst the other odd crafts.  We had really tasty wood-fire roasted salmon and some other mixed pork/onion dish that was pretty tasty.  All-in-all a good end to our stay in Munich.

On the way to Nuremberg

7 minutes later

We headed back to the hotel, loaded up the car and were off to Nuremberg. When we left, the temperature was hovering just a bit above freezing and it was partly cloudy. About half-way through the drive we ended up in the middle of a snowstorm.  I've included pictures taken 7 minutes apart that show just how fast we came upon the storm. Luckily the drivers are able to cope with the weather pretty well and we made it through just fine.

Nuremberg is one of the larger Bavarian cities and dates back to the mid 10th century.  Earliest records of the city being around the time a castle was built there along a major trade route.  Because of the cities trade importance, it was often used as a meeting place for heads-of-state and has been called the unofficial capital of the Holy Roman Empire.  Also of interest is the fact that Hitler had a liking for Nuremberg, and partially because of this he decided Nuremberg was to be the location of the major Nazi party rallies, also known as the Nuremberg rallies.


A bit more Nuremberg history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg


Because we stayed in 6 different cities in 7 nights, and had to spend up to 2 hours driving between cities that left us with limited time to explore each city.  Because we had stayed in Munich through the early afternoon, many of the local Nuremberg attractions had closed by the time we go there.  We just missed our chance to see the view from the top of the main tower of Castle Nuremberg, supposedly the best place to view the city. Oh well.  


We hurried through some of the churches and headed to the Christmas market. Yuka had done quite a bit of research on German Christmas markets and this one was supposed to be one of the best in all of Germany.  It definitely didn't disappoint.  The atmosphere was quite nice and there were a lot of people, so we knew it was popular! I've inlcuded some of my favorite pictures from around Nuremberg.

Nuremberg Handwerkerhof (I believe stands for hand craftsmen area). There was a
really neat store here of a man who made things from Pewter.

St. Lorenz church

St. Lorenz church

Heilig-Geist-Spital (Hospice of the Holy Spirit)

Hauptmarkt which is the city center and center of the Christmas Market. When it got dark this place filled up!

St. Sebaldus church - Nearly completely
destroyed in WWII.

St. Sebaldus church

Nuremberg Castle (The tower we didn't get to go up)

Nuremberg Castle... This wall confused me. It looks like, from the
bottom: stone, brick, then stone, then brick. Quite odd. I'm not sure
if they made the stone look like brick, or what but it was interesting.

View of Nuremberg from the upper level of the Castle (St. Sebaldus church towers
and St. Lorenz towers in the distance on the left)

View from the river.

A nice covered bridge.

After spending a few hours at the Christmas market and walking around the city, we headed to a local equivalent of the Hofbrauhaus and had some more local German beer.  After returning to the hostel, once again, we had an interesting experience in that one of the guys staying at the hostel was a pilot for Air Berlin. He was a nice Austrian guy who had been flying 737s for several months now.  We spend a few hours talking about Austria, flying, and other things. It was a nice evening and a good way to end our stay in Nuremberg.

Yuka enjoying some Gluwein and a really well-lit vendor!  This place had a bit of everything.

Picasa web album for Day 2