Getting to Know Nürnberg

Every big city deserves at least three days. One for an introductory bus tour, one for walking, and one for detailed examination of selected treasures. Four days allows me to include nearby attractions. Devoting a full week would be ideal; it would compensate for Saturday afternoon shutdowns, Sundays’ limited options, and Monday museum rest days.

Nürnberg was a three-day city, December 17, 18, 19. I had it all worked out: historic information, city plans, fun places, shopping. But I missed a few sites. Now that I’m home again, well rested and critical, I wonder why I didn’t visit the Dürer Haus as planned? Why did I neglect the underground bunker that held important artwork during WWII?

I think it had to do with exhaustion. I had spent 36 hours awake on planes and trains, in shuttles and taxis. I am sure the uphill location of the hotel could be blamed; the quarter mile to the market place was quite steep. Maybe it was my fear of slipping on icy cobblestones. Early darkness was certainly a factor. But whatever kept me from exploring more ground, now seems unwarranted. I could have done it all.

What I did do was worth the delays and setbacks I experienced; my journal is proof of that. The very first entry after my complaint about the lack of snow on the evening of my arrival shows definite approval. It says, “But all this was forgotten when I ate three potato pancakes with applesauce. The Church of our Lady, the Beautiful Fountain, the market, the stalls, the decorations, the gold-winged angels for sale, everything is splendid.”

And then of course it snowed early in the morning and all was well with the world. For a little while at least, until I looked into the mirror and saw that my right eye was bright red with blood. I whined. I thought that it took a lot of stamina to travel alone, to have to handle each incident with the same focus as the one before. I am always just a bit flustered when my schedule is offset by something unexpected.

I began my three-day stay with a trip to the nearest drugstore and was told where to find an emergency doctor. Kesslerplatz 5. In the suburbs. Definitely not on my list of things to see. After I walked three miles into the cold wind, I sat for an hour in the midst of coughing, sneezing, bewildered paupers. That’s what they looked like to me at that point, though the room probably resembled a Kaiser hospital emergency room rather closely. An ambulance took away the visiting father of the young man who sat next to me. I was convinced that my blood pumped into my heart at record speeds; that I would be whisked to an overcrowded gray building and spend the remainder of my holiday in a narrow bed with rows upon rows of dying people in tattered clothes. I think this idea took shape because I remembered an old movie with nuns and medieval poverty. It might have been about the plague.

The young doctor was quick. He rose behind his desk, bent forward, shook my hand, examined my eye, and pronounced me well.

“Harmless,” he said.
“Just a bruise,” he said.
“Did you hurt yourself?”

I didn’t. He prescribed eye drops. I concluded that he was either a real good doctor or a total quack. Should I be alarmed? At home a nurse would at least have taken my blood pressure. But I decided to trust him. It was easier this way. The world suddenly looked wonderful. Snow collected on my shoulders as I walked back to the walled Old town. I strolled through the Christkindlmarket, stopping in front of every stand, counting varieties of gingerbread, inhaling bratwurst smells, inspecting some of the famous little Zwetschgemännle, tiny dolls made from prunes, with nuts as heads, each dressed differently in a medieval costume. I bought a knit hat, one of those gray beanies with earflaps that we wore as children. This one had black tassels that hit my cheeks every time I turned around. I looked ridiculous. I asked somebody to take my picture so I could proof my point. I was very happy.

My first day in Nürnberg, though not the way I had planned it, was a very full day. After a three-hour nap in the late afternoon I made a list of all the things I had possibly lost along with the suitcase. I wanted to be prepared for an insurance claim. When I called the airline at 20:23, which is shortly before 8:30pm, I was told that the suitcase was on its way from Toronto and would be sent to Nuernberg by plane and to my hotel by taxi. I simply had to go out and celebrate, eat potato pancakes again, walk the streets in the dark, drink hot punch, buy something cute.

My second day in Nürnberg began with a long photo shoot in the snow. After breakfast of course. At seven I was the only one in the room, surrounded by swords and Rembrandt and Dürer portraits. The lamps were made of helmets. I had to remind myself that I sat in the Burghotel, just a few steps away from the castle, though the platters of hams, cheeses, jams, and fruits were definitely not medieval. Snow had gathered on the topiary in the courtyard; I was excited. Camera, Tyana the bear, hat and scarf. One more cup of coffee and I was on my way. Only briefly did I acknowledge the fact that I wore the same clothes for the fourth day in a row.

Before I left home I had printed out a map. The medieval inner city, enclosed by a wall, was 90 percent destroyed during WWII but rebuilt according to old plans. I had asked the taxi driver on my way to the hotel where I would find the Historical Mile.

“Alles hier ist historisch,” was his flippant answer. Everything here is historical. And given Nuremberg’s 950-year history, its reputation as most significant city of the Middle Ages, he is right.

I reasoned later that the one-sentence cold shoulder might have had to do with the reluctance of locals to invite even more foreigners into their crowded living arrangements. While their existence depends on tourism, the older ones often wish for “the way it was.”

The Historical Mile involves 35 places of interest; only now do I realize that I saw at least twenty of them on my unscheduled, unorganized, and unscientific strolls through the heart of the city. I probably passed the rest without paying attention. It was the snow that intrigued me. And Hans Sachs, the poet, and Albrecht Dürer, the painter, both native sons, both famous. I posed Tyana in front of their statues. I had the time of my life.

When I came back to the hotel in the evening my luggage had arrived. I had thought that I would be happy, but to my surprise seeing the suitcase proved to be a letdown. It had been kind of nice not to have choices. There must be a lesson for future travels in here somewhere

I did on the third day what I normally do on the first - I took a bus tour. Complete with old German lady as guide. Knowledgeable and rigid.

“Watch your step.”
“Pay attention.”

In typical tour guide fashion her occasional humor was measured to produce maximum effects. Her historical information was well rehearsed. She was clearly in total command of her flock of fourteen ignorant tourists. When I took my scarf off during the steep walk to the castle terrace she looked at me with disapproval. “Are you not cold madam?’

The tour touched on rather difficult subjects. Hitler. Nazis. The Nürnberg trials. At times I could feel her discomfort. I noticed slight changes in her voice when she translated for the two English couples. Was it my imagination or was her explanation a bit apologetic?

We passed the Reichstag building, the one that should have become larger than the coliseum in Rome, but was not finished. A Leni Riefenstahl exhibit was in progress. Frau Walther, our guide, commented on what she called “Grössenwahn,” Hitler’s obsession with everything bigger, better, more extreme. When we reached the Stadium where he gave speeches, she told us that a Rabbi held a service there for seven Jewish soldiers on April 4th 1945. He stood exactly where Hitler used to stand.

It is hard to explain what all these sites looked like. Abandoned and yet still mighty in their spaciousness. If they are meant to intimidate, to warn, to remind us of human arrogance, they did a good job on me. Passing the building where the Nazi trials were held was in contrast, almost uplifting. Apparently the four windows are always unshuttered; the light in the rooms is always on. I vowed to someday take a closer look at the national disgrace. That flaw of human nature that allowed the holocaust.

When we got off the bus at the castle I saw the kernels of answers in front of me. Centuries of power enveloped me. Barons, emperors, princes, kings, knights. This is where the thirst for power began. I had entered a most impressive fortress and to its feet I pictured the hovels of medieval peasants. My mind turned to scenes from epic movies to visualize battles in which brightly armored horsemen with bows and arrows dragged pick-fork wielding ragged peons through the mud and slush of the countryside. Then the robber barons rode through the gates of the city and turned their greedy faces toward the maidens who fed them grapes and showered them with ale.

To break the depressing bond with historical injustice I turned to the pale yellow rays of sunshine breaking through a thick layer of clouds. Imagine – for nearly a thousand winters this gray landscape has gone unchanged. A Japanese woman held her cell phone into the air and clicked. Minutes later, a continent away, somebody would look at the same snow-covered walls and lemon colored trails of light. My mind was fascinated. I had strayed from the group and was admonished by the stern words of our guide.

“Are you ready to leave madam?”

We walked, downhill, downhill, downhill, to the Christmas Market to attend the noon spectacle of the clock tower. Separation of church and state is a recent addition to our cultural sensitivities; on the richly ornamented gothic front of the fourteenth century Church of our Lady seven princes circle the enthroned emperor Karl the Fourth, bowing to the sounds of lunchtime bells. Never mind that this took place on the same spot where in 1349 a Synagogue had been torn down to disperse Jewish worshippers.

We said our goodbyes and everybody quickly disappeared into the golden paradise of Christmas shopping. I rushed to the Starbucks across the street; it was the closest coffee shop, the only place that did not sell hot wine and cold beer.

In the afternoon I took a long rest and now I remember why I forfeited a tour through Albrecht Dürer’s house and why I ignored the bunker on the way back to the hotel. Too many thoughts, too many German words tumbled through my head – something that always happens after a day or two – I needed to rein them in and put them on paper. It seemed that my brain had collected enough impressions to work on for some time. During the tour the words “Fascination and Terror” had come up in connection with Hitler’s architectural plans. Much like “Shock and Awe,” I thought and made a note to look up Albert Spears later. Then I noted that Schmidt is the biggest gingerbread baker in Nürnberg, producing three million pieces a day during the season. That too had to be fact-checked later.

When the streetlights came on I took one more trip to the market to buy marzipan sausages and potatoes to take home as presents. I ate my last potato pancakes and discovered something that made me giggle all the way back to the hotel.

While I stood at a tall table, watching snow flakes melt into my applesauce, I discovered just how dedicated the city of Nürnberg is to recycling. I was done and just about ready to toss the piece of cardboard that held the pancakes into the trash bin when I observed a woman eating her cardboard. I couldn’t stop myself from staring at her. Then I took a second look at mine, cautiously bit into it and realized that it was a bland wafer, the kind I seem to remember from long ago church services. Now all that was left for the trash was a tiny one-layer napkin.

Before I boarded the train the next morning I battled one more German word pair. It had attacked me at two in the morning while I watched the biography of an entertainer turned author. The famous Didi had left his homeland for the silence of an island in France. When asked about the worst noises he answered: “Heckenscheren und Handyclingeln.” Hedge trimmers and cell phone ring tones. Luckily somewhere during my three hour speed tour of snow-covered flatland I lost the jarring images of those words and began to shift into anticipation of a rain-soaked, lovely Heidelberg afternoon.