Nuremberg: Day 1 (9/05/19)
Got up nice and early on this wonderful Thursday and walked to Kaiserburg Nurnberg, the imperial castle that overlooks the old town. Cool, but since I couldn’t go inside due to construction it wasn’t the several-hour museum I was hoping for, RIP. But neat nonetheless!
I then went down the hill to the City Museumin Fembo House, which was surprizingly interesting I have to say. Especially for only a euro and a half entry fee as a student. Noice! I learned about how the city stood independently under imperial rule for several centuries before falling into hard times and becoming absorbed by Bavaria for a time. It was then taken over by the Nazi party as a “location of cultural importance to Germany” and served as a central location for their rallies. By the end of WWII Nuremberg was 90% destroyed and almost everything had to be rebuilt the following years. The museum also held a large amount of salvaged art and pointed out locations of interest around the city.
Ate lunch and read outside of St. Sebald church, which has a massive organ but is otherwise a classic Gothic church. The second museum I hit was the Nuremberg Toy Museum which contained, well, toys from all over Europe and the U.S. from the last hundred years. From little wooden boardgames to metal contruction sets to bourgeois doll houses and Minecraft. Legitimately very cool and I learned a decent amount about how toy production reflects a nation’s populace. Definitely targeted towards kids though, so there was a lack of text and a surplus of play rooms packed with kids, which made the whole thing even more fun!
I dropped by the Hauptmarkt church which had another very large organ and is located just off the main Hauptmarkt square that was host to a sparse scattering of weekday market stalls. I then walked around St. Lorenz church and saw an absolute whopper of an organ! Three separate pipe ranks, across the church and a truly massive console. Very neat! Unfortunate that I couldn’t hear it played though, I was exact one month too late for a recital lol.
Just one roommate tonight, Aja from Sweden. Quiet and one his was home after three weeks of travel. We only chatted briefly since he was tired from a day of driving so I didn’t get to know him at any depth.
