Nürnberg

This past weekend I went with two of my friends, Michelle and Morgan, to Nürnberg, but first we went to the Fassbender & Rausch chocolate factory. They had chocolate models of everything, cars, planes, animals, the Reichstag, the Brandenburger Tor, everything. 

This was my raspberry cake, it was delicious. So delicious! 

Then we went to Nürnberg. It was such a cute little city! It was bombed during the war just like Berlin was, but when they rebuilt it they did it in a way that retained the style of the old city. It definitely doesn't have the more modern feel that Berlin has. Michelle and I stayed in a hostel, my first hostel experience! It wasn't nearly as sketchy as I had thought it was going to be. But we did keep reminding each other of the movies "Hostel" and "Taken", and we creeped each other out. But it was a nice place. Pretty clean, and the breakfast they had was delicious, a butter croissant with strawberry jam and of course butter (by the way German butter is 1,000,000 times better than the butter in the US). Michelle and I swear that our 'roommate' was trying to steal her identity. She was a girl traveling around Germany from China, and she told Michelle "you have my face", followed by prying questions about her life, i.e. conversation for the immigration officers. Good thing our passports were being registered with the authorities that weekend so we didn't have them. Needless to say Michelle slept with the rest of her IDs under her pillow that night ;) Here is a picture of the road our hostile was on, that wall was rebuilt after the war, it was originally a fortification wall.

The first night we were in Nürnberg we just walked around the city center. 

This fountain was huge in person and is a story. Each side tells a different part of it.

And this is the stone that told the story of said fountain. Apparently the fountain was a depiction of the relationship some guy had with his wife. Um, can we just take another look at the fountain?? Talk about a love/hate relationship...

This store was called "Closed". That's an interesting name for a store...

This city is ridiculously beautiful. 

Can I just live here forever? 

But they do have some creepy artwork. This rabbit was rooting. And if you looked closer there are other smaller, starved rabbits coming out of the big rotting rabbit.

In the morning we headed up to the castle. On the way we passed a little antique store and decided to go in. In the back of the shop there was some military stuff I wanted to take a look at. So we all walk back there and it's pretty much all Nazi memorabilia. There was a Luftwaffe uniform and various other parts of the military uniforms out of the Third Reich. And not to mention the pictures of Hitler, that I'm pretty sure could have been used as propaganda. And there is also the small fact that I'm pretty sure all that stuff is illegal to have and especially illegal to sell in Germany. It was weird and a bit unsettling. 

When we got onto the castle grounds we had to walk through this really cool, old looking tunnel.

Panoramic of the grounds

That's a cool looking pistol.

If I was a horse and you put one of these things in my mouth I would tell you to get the hell off of me...

We climbed this. I got dizzy. But the view from the top was totally worth it. 

View from the top of the watch tower. 

After the castle we went to the courthouse where the Nürnberg Trials were held. This was where some of the top Nazi war criminals were tried and sentenced. 

Courtroom 600, where the trial took place. Sitting in there you got an unsettling feeling, knowing that such evil people had sat in that very room. And knowing what they were there for and the crimes they had committed...

Courtroom 600 in 1945 versus now.

Allies and chief prosecutors of the trials, The United States, United Kingdom, Russia, and France. 

The actual benches that the Nazis sat on while the trial took place. This is where they were sitting when they received their sentences.

And in the train station (on the way to the documentation center) we just had to stop and get Mars Bars. They are so delicious!

The Dokumentationszentrum in Nürnberg. This was the sight of the Nazi rallies. 

Panoramic picture of the 'stadium' that the rallies were held in, it was a huge space. 

This is a memorial inside the now museum to the victims of the Holocaust. There are 10,000 cards, each with a name, birthdate, birthplace, death date, and death place. Each of the 10,000 cards represents 100 people. 

There is something incredible about actually getting to see these places. It's one thing to read about them in books or learn about them in class. But to go see them, that makes it real.