Nuremburg Trials and Tribulations

Travelling deeper into Bavaria we stopped for a day at one of its most significant cities: Nuremberg. This city had an absolute wealth of historical sites and beautiful scenes and we had the good fortune of visiting it on a day when it was 27 degrees!

Since we had parked up in the tiergarten our first stop on the way to the city was the open air museum at the old nazi party rally grounds. This site was used from 1933 through to 1945 to host the mass rallies that the Nazi party were so famous for. Above is the famous rostrum from which speeches were delivered to massed crowds. What was new to me however was the extensive complex beyond the parade grounds. Further up the site was a huge road over 1,500m long which was the main route between the parade ground and the congresshalle, never finished but a massive structure nonetheless. 

Stopping off on our cycle through the city we poked our heads through a curious looking gate only to find a recreated medieval market.

Ploughing right through the city and out the other side we came to the Nuremberg Palace of Justice which is where the famous International Military Tribunal was held after the war. The excellent exhibit also contained the room itself where the Nazi war criminals faced their justice, or the 22 of them that had survived did. This was now, as I imagine it was in the 1940s, a deeply cathartic process after visiting Dachau on the previous day.

We further broke up the day with another visit to some impressive German easter markets.

And a picnic by some very pretty medieval bridges. This city jut keeps on surprising with all of its medieval treasures.

Our third stop took us dramatically back in time to the Kaiserburg which was the Imperial castle of the Holy Roman Empire for roughly 500 years. This was the seat of the Holy Roman Emperor as well as numerous imperial diets, a form of medieval German parliament. While Aachen was the site of the imperial coronations, Nuremberg was the site of its governance which often leads it to be seen as the historical capital of Germany. This was sadly a fact that the Nazi's grabbed on to and its use from the rally grounds to the infamous Nuremberg laws stripping Jewish people of their rights, led to it being a massive target of allied bombing after the war.

Shattered from a very busy day we collapsed by Moira for a bit before making our way out of the city. Our next destination, Prague is a little over 3 hours away and not fancying missing out on the scenery with a late night drive or rushing around the next day post-drive we opted for a slower plan. We decided to stop at a few smaller historical towns and destinations on the way to Prague and then visit it in earnest on Friday.