Nürnberg Altstadt: Schloss und Kirche

Highlights of our Nürnberg tours, both official and on our own, were the old city's churches. Because, you know, we just didn't see enough churches in Italy. (Seriously, you can never see enough European churches!) Plus Nürnberg threw in a medieval castle for good measure.

When we walked around the area on our own after checking in with our Viking cruise boat, we made a beeline for St. Lorenz, a huge Gothic structure built in the 14th century. Our helpful hosts had told us the official tour the next day would not be heading that far south.

It was pretty spectacular! So we're glad we got to Nürnberg in time to see it.

As often is the case in churches, the little details are as photogenic as the soaring architecture...

Pretty much all of Nürnberg was heavily bombed late in the war, and their churches didn't escape severe damage. All of them have interesting displays showing how they looked in mid-1945; the citizens of the town are rightfully proud of how well these buildings have been restored, often using the same stones with which they were originally built.

This interesting website has photos of St. Lorenz and the Frauenkirche (which we also visited; see below) showing their bomb damage.

During our free time, after the official tour, we opted to backtrack a little and see the inside of St. Sebaldus, an even more gorgeous Gothic church. 

It's also older than St. Lorenz, with construction beginning in the 13th century.

One of the reasons we wanted to see the interior of this church was that our guide, as we passed by on our tour, mentioned how its fabulous stained glass windows had been sheltered during the war, so that they could be re-installed when the church was restored. They were beautiful and numerous; this is just part of one wall that was decorated with them:

One of the most interesting, and quirkiest, features of the church is this monument to the hermit saint, which stands near the altar...

You can learn more about its somewhat over-wrought details in this Wikipedia entry for its sculptor. We were particularly charmed by the little snails which seem to be holding it up...

The first stop on our official tour was a secular, rather than a sacred, set of buildings, however. The Nürnberg Castle (German: Schloss) complex is a pretty cool place, the construction of which began around 1000 (!). It was also somewhat damaged during the war, but has been restored.

a view of the Castle as we approached on our bus

We didn't go into any of the buildings, but walked around a lot and saw some photogenic towers...

...gabled buildings (with accompanying fall color)...

...more towers...

...and important features like gates...

Yes, it was pretty crowded, with many tour groups in addition to our own. But the great new technology available to tour guides made it easy to keep up and hear everything that Sigorn, our wonderful guide, had to tell us.

On the right you can see her explaining some of the Castle's fortifications. You'll notice she has a microphone. It's wirelessly connected to headsets that we all had, which allow us to hear her from at least 50 yards away. So she doesn't have to yell or compete with the spiels of adjoining tour groups' guides.

This is such a great innovation! At the beginning of the tour, you just tap your headset controller against your guide's "lollipop," a round sign that not only identifies your group number but contains some mysterious electronics, and you're ready to go. That way the guide has a sign that you can visually home in on in case/when you wander off from your group, plus a sonic way for her to keep her charges in line, too.

In addition to the fact that all of our guides, local residents of the cities they were guiding us around, were fantastic, this technology made all of our tours truly wonderful experiences. I don't think Viking invented this system (one of the guides said it's been around for a few years) but they use it well, and this, plus their very organized system for keeping track of guests while also allowing us the freedom to explore, meant that no one ever got lost!

After walking around the Castle, we headed a few blocks south, past St. Sebaldus, to our ultimate destination, Albrecht Dürer Platz and our last church, the Frauenkirche ("Church of Our Lady").

We didn't have time to go inside this 14th-century beauty, opting to tour St. Sebaldus instead. But the main attractions of the square were 1) its incredibly ornate clock, which we got to see run through its very elaborate paces...

...2) Lebkuchen, Nürnberg's signature sweet, which is available at market stands and brick-and-mortar shops all around the square...

...3) the usual quirky characters you see in a market square...

...and, last but certainly not least, 4) the Schöner Brunnen ("Beautiful Fountain"), a riotously decorated 13th-century fountain that is a Nürnberg landmark (the link I've shared is primarily interested in the ironwork around the fountain and you'll learn more than you ever wanted to know about this feature if you read it!)...

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While we were touring, our lovely boat and home-away-from-home was sailing some kilometers down the Main-Danube Canal. Our bus picked us up in the small town of Roth, and we continued to sail the rest of the afternoon, while we listened to interesting talks about Bavaria and the Canal. Soon we would join up with the Danube itself!