King of the castle, but where's my Spanish Queen?

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Geo: 49.4505, 11.0805

It's a small world - in the hostel, I saw a Korean lady, her daughter, and her mother, that I had seen on the boat to Hallstatt's train station. It actually happens a lot more often than you might think.

I tried napping on the train to Nurnberg, without much success - didn't sleep well last night because of the heat. I originally considered passing through Nurnberg en route to Rothenburg and staying two nights there, but it's a pretty nice town, and I'm glad that I'll be staying the night. It was a long, hot, uphill hike to the hostel - I needed to pause a couple of times for a breather. At least much of the walk was shaded, and the temperature may not have cracked 30 today.

I arrived at the hostel, which is located inside the castle, in the former stables. My room was on the 5th floor - after such a long walk, my only thought was "noooooooooooooooo!!!!!", but luckily for me, there was an elevator. I felt like a king, staying in a castle, but was disappointed that there was no Spanish Queen waiting for me in the room 😞

First up, the City Museum - I arrived just as the continuously-repeating intro movie was finishing up, and wasn't going to bother with it, but the security guard was so nice (despite his limited English), that I felt bad for not staying. He told me to sit while he re-set the film so I could watch it in its entirety, and even directed me to the best seats. Once the lights went out and he left, I quietly ducked out.

There wasn't much of interest here, but I really only went because the Museum Combo card is such a great deal - individual admission to any of the museums is 5 Euros, but the card grants you access to all the museums, for the same price. Since I'm planning on going to the Nazi Documentation Centre later, any other museum I visit is basically free.

Before lunch, I squeezed in the castle - kind of boring but granted, I didn't pay to go inside the exhibits, because I really didn't care. I quickly popped into St. Lawrence church, only to briefly escape the heat, before having a fast-food lunch.

For dessert, I had some rockin' melon gelato. I desperately needed to lower my body temperature, otherwise I would've passed out, cracked my head on the sidewalk, and my brains would've oozed out and scrambled themselves on the sizzling pavement. I only ate the gelato to prevent this horrible death, not because I wanted to eat it ....

On to the tram to the Nazi Documentation Centre - it was like an oven on board! Despite being cooler earlier, the temperatures climbed to over 30, once more. It's a good thing that I had just eaten that gelato ... The Documentation Centre was very interesting, but information overload! It's different from other Nazi museums, in that it doesn't focus on the holocaust, but how the Nazi movement started and came into power.

Back to the old town - it started to rain fairly heavily, a welcome sight, as it cooled things off significantly. Still wanting to make good use of the Museum Card, I went to the Albrecht Durer house - pretty boring and still pretty hot inside. But hey, it was included, right?

Back to the hostel for a quick siesta, before dinner. The hostel had been taken over by a huge Korean religious group. Doug and Carmen had recommended a restaurant near the train station, saying that it had amazing food, but I wasn't sure if I had found the right spot, so I decided on Burgwachter instead.

Back when I met the first Virginia on the train to Mannheim, she suggested that I try the special Nurnberg beer, but they had no such thing on offer. The waitress suggested a popular brew, and I tried that instead - pretty good. I wanted to start with the Franconian potato soup with stone fungus and smoked Nuremburg sausages. Sound good? I'll never know, because it was forgotten!

But that's a good thing, because there was no way I could have finished that and the massive entree - roasted pig shoulder with raw dumplings. It was a bit cool, but still nice sitting on the patio. A young couple and their son was sitting nearby, and the kid fell backward off his stool, smacking his head hard on the pavement. That must've been painful, you could see his head bounce off the ground and hear the sickening sound it made. The mother immediately grabbed the kid and took him outside to console the kid. The father just sat there, making some casual remark and continuing to eat his steak. He didn't even bother to check on the kid until five minutes later, but in all fairness, mother and son were only 15-20 feet away.

Despite being stuffed, I went back to the Gelatone eis shop, where earlier I had that life-saving melon gelato. This time it was amaretto, with some yummy bits of amaretti cookies mixed within. I wanted to try a different place, but with so few days left in Europe I figured that I should stick with the place that I knew was good.

As I ate my gelato, I wandered over to Eis Cafe Roma and browsed their selections - they have a caipirinha flavour! I'll have to check it out if they are open tomorrow, but I doubt they will be open by the time I leave. I walked around a bit more and it was back to the hostel for some reading and sleep.

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