Day 22, Nuremberg Sightseeing

Had a bit of a lie in this morning. Even Grizzly set his alarm for later. Never known before in the history of Wild Hogs tours, as far as I can remember.

We went down for brekkie. There's a screen that asks you to sign in, using the QR code. We don't have one. Oh well! We filled our faces, as usual and took to the streets. I had installed an app for the transport system in Nuremberg and thought I had it all sussed. 2 single tickets, lasting 90 minutes. Plenty of time to get us to the Documentation Centre on Tram 8. Grizzly wanted to visit a pharmacy, for a problem we shan't go in to, so we made our way to the main train station. They didn't have what he wanted. I was fiddling about trying to work out how to pay, so we missed one tram. The next wasn't far behind but just before it arrived a swarm of teenage students arrived. I told Grizzly we needed to get on quick. The doors opened and on went the swarm. I managed to grab a seat for Grizzly but not for myself. I spent most of the journey standing and trying to pay for the 2 tickets but kept getting an error, so we had a free ride, saving almost €7.We went into the documentation Centre, a museum in the north wing of the remains of the Congress Hall of the party rallies, at the Nazi Party Rallying Grounds. There is a lot of improvement going on, so the exhibition space is greatly reduced. Still, very interesting. An interesting fact I picked up from an English speaking guide was, the Nazi Brownshirts outnumbered the regular army, restricted in size after WW1 to 100,000 men, by 20/1, a staggering figure!

Having finished inside we were able to look around the Congress Hall's exterior. I have done this before with my brother, 9 or so years ago and boy has it changed. Here again they are doing works building a new centre. The hall is shaped like a horseshoe with an open end, which Paul and I rode into. That's almost gone, being built on.

We continued around the grounds, picking up various sign boards, explaining what used to be there and what still exists, such as the grand road, a 60m wide 1500m long road, made from 60,000 marble slabs. This is all where parades would have come up during the rallies. The Americans used it as a landing strip after they occupied the city. Now it's used as a car park for big events held on the site.

Making our way around a huge lake, we came to the zeppelin field, named apparently, after a zeppelin landed there in 1909. The field became a parade ground under the Nazis and you can still see where the stands for the public were. Fronting this area, is the huge stand, with the podium Hitler used to speak from. You will almost certainly have seen videos of him up there. Unlike my last visit, we couldn't go up there. Shame, a picture of a little short fella with a moustache would have been quite good. They are redeveloping it into a more visitor centre type area, hence it's all fenced off.

The whole 16 sq km area now has been transformed. There are all sorts of sporting activities using the area, including the Nuremberg football stadium and a car racing circuit, that's been in use since 1947. Given the amout of barriers tyres, plus scaffolders building stands, race day can't be far off.

Our final stop on the tour was at Burger King. Yes, we had a snack/drink but there was another reason for going there. It is housed in a former Nazi power station and on the wall outside, you can still see where the symbolic eagle was etched.

The plan was to get the train back to the city centre station, if only I could get the app to work. I jumped on BK's wifi and this time managed to book us tickets. The error before must've been down to a poor signal on my 4G.

The train, as was the tram earlier, was spotlessly clean. No grubby upholstery, no litter. The tram actually looked brand new, the seats were that fresh looking. 4 stops took us to Nuremberg Hauptbahnhof, otherwise known as Central Station. I was expecting to have to scan the tickets here at least, though we'd just walked onto the platform the other end, but it seems the system is based a lot on trust and maybe fear of being inspected. Incredible. Back home the oiks around Kent would have a field day! They're always trying to cheat the system now.

Back in town, we had to visit another pharmacy. This time a purchase was made. We had a quick suss of somewhere to eat later, then returned to our room, where Grizzly took what he calls a benjy hour, an afternoon nap!

Having identified our restaurant earlier, we made our way for dinner. It brews its own beer on site, a light and a red. I tried both, along with pork, 3 sausages, sauerkraut, potato dumplings and horseraddish. The latter just looked like grated cheese. I had expected something akin to our horseraddish back home, creamed in some way. This was jusr grated raddish. It was all very tasty, though the potato dumplings could have done with some seasoning.

The evening was sort of spoilt when it came to paying the bill, the waiter almost insisting I add a tip to the bill.. In 22 days that's the first time anyone has ask for a tip. Leaves a bit of a sour taste in the mouth. I caved, he got about €2.50. Beer count +3 to 52.

Back at the hotel we're prepping for tomorrow's ride, to Trier, still in Germany.

Pics from our sightseeing day.