Lost in Germany: Nürnberg Weihnachtsmarkt and a Walled City

Another weekend exploring Germany, oh how I love it.

This weekend my dad was here so after a great day and a half wandering around Frankfurt we hopped the train to see another city, Nürnberg with a small side trip to Rothenberg ob der Tauber. Seeing as it’s now the height of the Christmas season I didn’t feel like I could live in Germany and not see the most famous Weihnachtsmarkt in the whole country. Besides, it’s a city with a wonderfully rich history and I knew that would appeal to my dad.

After a relatively quick and easy train trip, we arrived in Nürnberg to a grey a drizzly day. Not that the weather could possible stop us from exploring almost immediately. So we picked up a spare umbrella and headed off into the city. First stop: food. A great little find of a restaurant on Dürer Strasse, which actually led us to realize that Albrecht Dürer lived in Nürnberg and his house was just down the street. I being the uneducated girl that I am didn’t realize who Dürer actually was until my dad explained to me that he was one of the most highly respected European painters (insert more historical info here). With that bit of knowledge in hand, we toured through his family home listening to the headsets which gamely attempted to further inform my knowledge of the subject.

Once we trundled back out to the street fully educated, we headed up to the main castle in Nürnberg where we found ourselves on another tour, but this time it was live and in German. I guess it was a great opportunity to apply my recently acquired linguistic schools. Although I followed bits and pieces our guide really caught my attention when he took us into the well which was over 300 meters deep and had been dug over a more than xx year period. It took more than 10 seconds for water poured from a pitcher to reach the bottom of the well. Incredible.

The night was spent wandering through the Christmas market, and we did actually walk down every single aisle in the square where I found several of my heart’s desires: Nürnberg sausages and gingerbread. Yum.

After an early night, we got up the next day and wandered through the city a bit more. It was wonderful having everything to ourselves for a few hours. I love the feeling of a city asleep, there’s something so intimate about being privy to that. We didn’t linger too long though before we hopped on the train to Rothenberg ob der Tauber.

Another very old city, Rothenberg is a medieval walled city, in some ways very similar to Nürnberg but just a bit smaller. Probably the highlight for my dad and I was exploring the Lutheran church in the center of the city. All my dad could keep muttering was how hard it was to believe that it was a Lutheran church and not a Catholic one. Now I don't know that much about what distinguishes one Christian place of worship from another branch, but even I could tell this was an extraordinarily ornate Lutheran church. Beautiful for sure, but ornate. And in fact, somewhat contradictory to the principles of what Luther himself had preached, a move away from the conspicuous wealth and consumption of Catholicism.

Anyhow, it was a great little stop although we didn't linger long. Soon enough we hopped back on the train to head to Frankfurt. It's been great having my dad here for a few days. I think sometimes it's easy to get caught up in the daily grind and neglect to see how fast time is actually passing you by. I'm really grateful that we have this time together.