Munich and Nurnberg

On September 10th, we drove through the fog from the Nurburgring to Koblenz, turned in our car at the train station and found a place to sit down and wait for the train to Munich. I originally planned for us to take a fast train (that would not go along the Rhine) with a change in Mannheim that would put us in Munich in time for a late lunch or early dinner. However, uncharacteristcally, the train I chose was running so late that we would miss our connection.

Fortunately, I had printed an alternative route along the Rhine which took longer, and changed in Ulm instead. We took that train and arrived in Munich later than originally planned but earlier than we probably would have otherwise. Thank goodness for the Deutche Bahn's online service. I used it for almost every route in the EU.

The hotel was just a few blocks from the train station, so we walked over and checked in. We went from that ultra-modern room at the Nurburgring to high German kitsch, complete with a canopy bed.

But they had the same kind of gizmo at the door. To save on electricity, you have to put your key card in this device. It turns on the power to everything except the TV as it turned out. It seemed to stay on even if the card was not in the slot. We encountered these in all the new and recently remodeled hotels we stayed in.

I chose this hotel partly due to its proximity to the train station and partly due to its proximity to the Augustiner beer garden. It is considered to be the oldest and largest beer garden in the world. The weather was wonderfully warm and we had a nice meal there.

Trout did yeoman service to the liter of beer and I helped with the pretzel, but he couldn't finish the beer and we didn't finish the pretzel in favor of our real food.

I took the picture below from the children's play area. It was on a slight hill above the beer garden with all kinds of play equipment and tables for the families to sit and eat and drink. Kids were not prohibited from the rest of the garden, but it was a special place for them to burn off energy.

It may be shocking to some, but kids were always at the dance halls with their parents in the Texas Hill Country. That culture is primarily German from the immigrants who came there in the first half of the 19th century.

There were 3 reasons for us to spend time in Munich and Bavaria. One was for Trout to go to a beer hall. We did go to the famous Hofbrauhaus and we had a meal there. He discovered that he liked a 1/2 liter radler (beer mixed with lemonade) better than a whole liter beer.

It was too hot for us to sit inside, every table in the garden was filled, so we sat on a covered balcony overlooking the garden. Just as we finished our meal, there was a downpour of rain complete with thunder. We didn't get too wet, but a lot of other people did. We paid our bill and took shelter at the Starbucks across the street before we headed home.

The second reason for spending time in this area was for me to show Trout where I lived. On Saturday, the 12th, we made a side trip to Nurnberg. We didn't have time to do all the things possible there, but we did get to see a bit of the Altstadt, the old medieval walled city.

Of course things have changed in the last 25 years. The Strassenbahn (street car) doesn't run all the way to my street, Schoppershofstrasse, anymore. The U-Bahn (subway) which was minimal at best when I lived there has been greatly expanded, so we took it to the Schoppershof stop. When we came up it was right at the grocery store I used to frequent when the Commissary was closed.

Things looked very different, though. The area had been gentrified. Trees were all over the place where it used to be plain pavement and sidewalks. We were still able to find my street, walk down it and find my former apartment. It was the one on the top floor. 99 steps, no elevator, but great light.

In this picture you can see that the wide sidewalk was cut out with parking places and trees planted. When I lived there it was plain, wide sidewalk. As is common in so many parts of Europe, you parked half on and half off the sidewalk so there would be room to drive down the middle of the street.

It was built in 1912 and had very little damage from WWII.

Trout took this picture of me in front. There was a couple there cleaning their bikes getting ready for a ride. He asked me what my connection to the building was. I told him I had lived there in the early 80's. He seemed surprised at that. It appeared that the ground floor apartment which had been the building manager's was for sale, so I'm guessing it's now a condo building.

We opted to walk to the Altstadt from there rather than take the U-Bahn or the Strassenbahn. It looked like the tracks had been removed fairly recently, and there were just weeds in the former track area. No landscaping yet. We caught up to the closest Strassenbahn stop about 3 blocks away, but continued walking anyway. I think Trout decided later that was probably a mistake.

We found our way to our targeted lunch spot and even found a place to sit. It was very crowded because it was Saturday and beautiful weather. This is the first place I ate in Nurnberg and one of the best places in town for Nurnberger bratwurst.

Right next door is St. Sebald Kirche, but a wedding was happening there so we walked on to Albrecht Durer Haus and toured it instead. I found the tour charming. We had headsets with his wife Agnes telling us in English what he was like and what it was like living there with him. Parts of the descriptions were very funny. According to her, he was a good artist who liked fine clothes, but she ran the business.

This area of the Altstadt has excellent examples of German Fachwerk (timber frame) building.

We circled back by St. Sebald and managed to visit the inside between weddings. There were many being held there that day.

I always loved this church because it has lots of pictures of what it looked like after the WWII bombing and how it was rebuilt. Trout liked the organ.

As Gothic churches go, this one is pretty plain, largely due to its Romanesque roots.

After visiting St. Sebald, we walked through the market square past the 14th century Shoner Brunnen (beautiful fountain) to the Frauenkirche.

This is the same Hauptmarkt area where the annual Christkindlesmarkt takes place. The market was an absolute zoo even as late as we were there. It had spread throughout the Altstadt area toward the Bahnhof (train station) and was teeming with people. I must admit I liked it better when it was smaller and just in this main square.

The Frauenkirche was lovely and Trout got to see and hear another impressive organ.

In all the years of living there, I never knew that this church was built on the ruins of a synagogue which was destroyed during a pogrom in 1349. This Star of David pays homage to that former Jewish place of worship.

We saw this kind of thing in many places in Europe, some starting with a pagan place of worship and working through all the options to a Catholic or even Protestant church. Religion?, ie. did people feel these were sacred places? Politics?, i.e. did people want to obliterate the memory of the religion (and its power) that came before? My money is on the latter.

This was one of the impressive altars that we saw on the trip. Many more were to come.

In all my research for the trip, I never found a mention of this restaurant we used to go to quite frequently, the Heilig Geist Spital. I guess I should've looked it up separately. From the 14th to the 18th centuries, it was a hospital. Now it's a restaurant. We didn't go in, but I did get these pictures. Can you guess what Heilig Geist means?

So that was it for our few hours in Nurnberg. Before getting back on the train to Munich, we went to Barfusser, a place I had never heard of before, to get some Schaufele. Neither of us was very hungry, but Trout admitted it was delicious. I think he liked it better than the Nurnberger bratwurst.

I mentioned 3 reasons for spending time in Bavaria. The last was to visit to Dachau. It will be a separate blog posting.