trials, rallies and walls

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Nuremberg may not be the top of everyone’s ‘must see’ list but being what my mum used to call, a ‘Nazi botherer’ it was definitely mine. I was actually very surprised how open the city is about its grim past and has embraced its role in National Socialism and is honest about the way it has moved forward since then. It took 4 and half hours on the train to get from Vienna (at the crack of dawn may I add) and upon arrival I discovered that my hotel was nestled beautifully in the old town, between 2 churches and the red light district! Must make sure I turn the correct way on the way out of the front door then! After getting directions I headed to the nearest tram station and took a tram all the way out to the Documentation centre. It is a memorial/exhibition centre attached to the congress hall where the Nazi rallies took place. Fantastic exhibition with really interesting audio guides that were both informative and chilling. You can walk out into the congress area, it was built to resemble the coliseum in Rome and you get a real sense of the scale of the place. It was never finished due to the outbreak of war but you can almost feel the atmosphere. There is a huge lake nearby and the remains of the Zeppelin field which has destroyed in the early 60’s only to discover they needed to stay due to damage to water levels or some other complicated answer, so they are left as a wreck… very eerie. I took the tram back to the main station and then went on my walking tour of the old town which is all enclosed in medieval walls. Some beautiful old buildings and churches mixed with 1970’s style shopping arcades seem to be the order of the day. I then found a bus tour which was going to the places further afield and had an interesting commentary. It went up towards the castle which sits on a hill overlooking the town and out past the rally grounds to the old SS barracks which have part of the original building still standing. I had the funniest ice cream experience as well, when choosing a flavour I noticed that rum raisin is called Malaga in German… what happens if they want to go to Malaga for a holiday???Do they have to book for rum raisin? By 7pm I had seen most of the city and walked my feet off. The following morning I had time to get the underground up to the justice palace where the Nuremberg Nazi trials happened. You couldn’t go in the actual courtroom 600 as it is still used for court cases but you could see the iconic 4 windows.

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