It was Sasha who came up with the brainwave of splitting some of these destinations out into separate trips - in order to take advantage of visiting their Christmas Markets at Christmas time. The two places she had in mind were Nuremberg and Dortmund - Nuremberg because it was supposed to be good, and Dortmund because their claim to fame at Christmas time was that they had the biggest Christmas tree in Europe or even the world, made up of many different Christmas trees. I had recently discovered that a new high-speed train was about to open at the beginning of December which would slash the time of trains between Berlin and Munich from 7 hours to 4 hours - and as a consequence would shrink the travelling time from Berlin to Nuremberg from 5 to 3 hours. This made Nuremberg a lot more feasible for a weekend trip, and meant we didn't have to fly - it also made it feasible for us to tack on a visit to Rothenburg ob der Tauber, considered one of the prettiest towns in all of Germany and a place that was on our list. So Nuremberg came together very quickly and easily - it required a little bit of jiggling with train fares and times but we managed to book it all reasonably cheap.
Dortmund was another kettle of fish - particularly because on the only weekend by then that we had free to do it on, the market would not be open on the Saturday night. But without taking time off work there was no way to get there on the Friday night, and it all kind of fell apart. So we dropped the idea, as we could always include Dortmund in the Western Germany trip - but we had Nuremberg, which was something!
Day 1 - NurembErg
Called Zum Gulden Stern, it was reputed to be the oldest restaurant in the city and specialised in Bratwurst meals. So we went in and got seated at a table with some other people - a German father and his two sons, one of whom lived in Nuremberg and the Dad & brother lived in a small town elsewhere in Germany. We know this, because the Dad was quite keen to engage us in conversation and also very keen to recommend the Altfranken Dunkel beer for a drink. Although a bit awkward at first it was quite funny because the Dad would crack the occasional joke - for example as they came from a small town with less than 200 people living there, so when they come to Nuremberg "...we find there are too many people. You might even say it is Over-Krauted!". Who says the German's aren't funny? We got the large Bratwurst dish of 12 Nürnberger Rostbratwürste, known as "Rösti" with a site of potato salad, and it filled us up. The rest of the restaurant had filled up in that time too - had we arrived when we left, we would not have gotten a table! |
Day 2 - Rothenburg ob der Tauber
Summing Up
Ok so time to stop talking about trains, time to get to the point! This was a great trip - I'd been to Nuremberg before (to visit the German Railway Museum - last mention of trains I promise!), but only for half a day really and had always wanted to go back. So it was great to go back, and with Sasha this time - we did a whole heap of different and enjoyable things, although I am certain we exhausted all of what we wanted to do there in the course of our full day there. We thought about going to the museum about the Nuremberg Trials but that seemed rather depressing when we were having an enjoyable time perusing the markets and the city. As for Rothenburg ob der Tauber - every bit as pretty as they say, and Christmas time was a good time to go because that's a time when this town really excels and in many ways makes sense. Even if it is full-to-overrun with people! So... will we go back? to Nuremberg - unlikely I would say, but it might be nice to go back to Rothenburg ob der Tauber in summer time if we ever visit this side of the world again and have the opportunity. Might be a bit hard to do, so it could well be that was the only opportunity ever - but if that's the case, that's perfectly fine!
So a bit more of Germany ticked off!