Germany, pt. 2: Nuremberg

Nürnberg mural in the underground/s-bahn station.

Tiana and I woke up at what I like to call “butt-ass” early on the 23rd to catch a bus from Berlin to Nürnberg. The only thing was that we had to take a series of Underground/S-Bahn connections all the way to the other side of Berlin to catch the bus. We barely made it, but we did, and off we were to Nürnberg, arriving sometime in the early afternoon. We walked to our hostel called the Lette’m Sleep Hostel. It is built into the part of a castle, which was really nice, except, it was at the top of a steep hill so we were pretty tuckered out by the time we checked in.

Our accommodation: the Lette'm Sleep Hostel for backpackers Nuremberg

In no time though we went back into the middle of the main old city (Altstadt) to check out the Christmas Market there called the Nürnberger Christkindlesmarkt (Christ child market). Our friend Christoph said that the Nürnberg Christmas market was one of the best, and it definitely didn’t disappoint.

Nürnberger Christkindlesmarkt in front of the Frauenkirche

The whole area is surrounded by the old, big, gorgeous architecture of Churches and other old buildings. The main part of the market itself was right in front of the Frauenkirche which is now the Catholic Parish Church of Our Lady. I think this was definitely our favourite market. Yes, there were plenty of repeat booths selling a lot of the same stuff, but we did see many unique booths with hand-made wares that were nothing short of spectacular. For example:

Hand-made (Handarbeit) houses. A unique style, but extremely expensive (I think over €200? zehr teuer!).

Hand-carved little drawers out of logs. This whole booth was astonishing.

Tiana was in awe of these.

Tiana thinks that anything that is a smaller version of its normal self is cute. So lo and behold this booth was an explosion of cuteness.

It really took us quite a while to go up and down all of the aisles as there were so many of them, and we double-backed a few times when we were deciding whether or not to get various items. Again, we had plenty of Glühwein to help warm us up. At one point it got so busy that there were almost too many people for my taste, but then it thinned out again the later it got. I guess it is to be expected at such a gorgeous Christmas market on the 23rd of December. We found a real Nürnberger restaurant off the beaten path for dinner, and we ended the night seeing a band playing in front of the Catholic church.

Hallo!

The next morning after a great night of sleep we awoke to a complimentary breakfast from the hostel. It was really good, and I’d say better than the breakfast we had when we stayed at a good hostel in Edinburgh once, i.e. there wasn’t a haggis option (no offense to those that love it, us Americans weren’t raised on it).

Nom om om om

Guten Morgen!

Before we left, we had the whole morning of Christmas Eve to ourselves before we left for Baden-Baden so we decided to check out the two big churches. At first, we went to the big Lutheran Church but even though it was supposed to have already been open it seemed like they couldn’t quite get up on time that morning. But, we did run into some Texans who were also trying to get in and they took a couple of pics of us (not pictured) but I did get a cool picture of the main door which looks a bit like other depictions of Christ’s harrowing of hell.

Door to the Lutheran church.

However, the Frauenkirche (Catholic Church of our Lady) was open and there was somebody playing some lovely organ music, so we took a wander, snapped a few pictures, and sat for a bit listening to the music.

Inside the Frauenkirche

Little alcove sanctuary (I'm sure there's a better name for it, but I forget)

The Christmas market was still open so we took one last 5-minute look (it was too early for Glühwein) and checked out an adjacent book shop before mailing off a bunch of postcards. Then we returned to our hostel and ordered a taxi to the Hauptbahnhof (central train station). The rest of our Germany travels were on the nice ICE trains (for the most part). Unfortunately due to the weather (I guess? they’re trains though I don’t get it) our train was delayed by about two hours and so we ended up taking three trains instead of one to get to Baden-Baden. As our friend Mike would say, it was a ‘nightmare’ of travel. We finally did arrive in Baden-Baden to stay with our couchsurfing hosts Christine and Michael who live in Wintersdorf. They’re fantastic people, but the tales (and pictures) of our time there over Christmas will have to wait for another blog post. Tschüß!

Links:

• Frauenkirche, now the Catholic Parish Church of Our Lady (‘unsere liebe Frau’)
• Nürnberger Christkindlesmarkt (Nuremburg Christ the Child Market)
• Lette’m Sleep Hostel: Nürnberg

Germany, pt. 1: Arrival in Berlin + Christmas Market Hunt

At the Alexanderplatz Christmas Market. Probably the most 'touristy' of them all but it had this huge contraption thingy!

On December 21st, Tiana and I flew to Berlin to begin our Christmas holiday. We begun our trip together in Germany and then Tiana flew back to Nottingham on the 30th to go back to work while I am staying in Germany to start a German immersion language course in Berlin at the Goethe Institute from the 5th-29th. It’s currently New Years day and I am at a pub in Berlin called Roots. The free Wi-Fi sticker on the door drew me in, not to mention the designated smoking room in which to enjoy a cigar. In addition to a nice Erdinger on top, the lovely bar person served me up a Dju Dju beer. It’s an African beer that she then poured into a coconut shell — really good!  So that is where I am and now: onto where we have been.

German breakfast in Berlin at our couchsurfing host's place. It is served on little cutting boards.

We arrived in Berlin and ‘Couchsurfed’ at a place in East Berlin. The host’s name is Hanna and she was extremely nice and hospitable, and expressed her enthusiasm for her part of Berlin. It reminded us very much of the kind of areas of cities that Tiana and I are drawn to: Ocean Beach, City Heights, Normal Heights, and Hillcrest areas of San Diego, for example — areas that are full of culture, cuisine, and the arts, and not so interested in the touristy aspect of city living (however, you kind of have to do some touristy things when you visit a new country!). On our first night we walked around a bit on our own and happened upon a random bar called Bretterbude which is a place whose aesthetic is basically heavy metal + pirates. It seemed like they couldn’t get enough of AC/DC, Motörhead, and Iron Maiden while on the hunt for One-Eyed Willy’s ‘rich stuff’, if you catch my drift.

Enjoying some Glühwein.

The next day, we went to the East Side Gallery, which is about a 1km stretch of the remaining section of the Berlin wall. It is covered with murals for the whole length, and it gets repainted with new murals every decade or so (at this point: twice, 1989, and repainted in 1999, 2009). Then, we checked out a bunch of different Christmas Markets (Weinachtmärkte) all over Berlin. Tiana really likes the markets, and I enjoy the Glühwein (mulled wine) and taking pictures. Some of the markets were better than others that were more touristy whereas others were more quaint and intended for families. At one of the smaller ones we saw a little booth that wasn’t a booth at all but it was a place to warm up: it consisted of seats made out of heaters with big warm jackets draped from a frame where the ‘operator’ would come and secure you in all warm and snug. It looked like this:

Weinachtmarkt Human Defrosting and Heating

We did a ton of walking that day (as well as extensively using the Underground and S-Bahn systems). We even went to some area called Karl Marx Allee where the architecture was all very big, blocky, and symmetrical. It looked cool in its own way, although it wasn’t my thing. The nearby tourist sign reads:

Symmetry and Harmony:

The architect Richard Paulick made many marks on the boulevard. His designs included the German Athletics Hall which was demolished in 1971. Typical of his blocks in section C are symmetry and harmony. With their façade arrangements and well-proportioned structuring they rank among the boulevard’s oustanding architectural highlights.

One of Paulick’s most interesting designs was the Karl Marx Bookshop in Block C. He not only successfully integrated a large-scale retail store with over 1,200 square meters on two floors in a residential building, his design also reflected the store’s social significance in the GDR where reading was very popular. Many people met in this bookshop for readings by authors and for critical discussions, especially in the final years of the GDR.

In 1994, after extensive restoration and detailed reconstruction, the Berlin Chamber of Architects moved into the main section of the fomer bookshop premises. The idea was to link up with the spirit and significance of the former bookshop by creating an “open house of architecture”. In 2008 the bookstore had to be closed down. Its name on the façade, “Karl-Marx-Buchhandlung,” has been put on the list of buildings and monuments to be preserved.

Yeah, it’s a bit of a dry description, but the translated prose itself gives a sense of the dry architecture on this block. Our host Hanna said that it’s one of those areas that you pass through, look at, take a picture, and move on. So with that, I will follow up with a description of our experiences of our next day in Nürnberg in the next post.

Links of relevance from this post:

• Roots Afro-Caribbean Bar
• Dju Dju beer
• Couchsurfing.com
• Bretterbude
• East Side Gallery
• Description of the Berlin Christmas Markets (in English)
• List of all the Weinachtsmärkte in Berlin 2010 (in German)
• “Goodbye, Karl-Marx-Buchhandlung” (in German)