Nuremberg
Franconia'S Largest City: The Imperial Castle And Walled Old Town, The Documentation Centre At The Nazi Party Rally Grounds, Courtroom 600 Of The Nuremberg Trials, And The Christkindlesmarkt · Nuremberg, Bavaria
Nuremberg is the largest city in Franconia, roughly half a million people on the Pegnitz, and it holds two subjects that sit uneasily together. The medieval city is the Imperial Castle on its sandstone ridge, about 4 km of walls with dozens of towers, the Hauptmarkt with the Beautiful Fountain, Duerer's house, the churches of St Lorenz and St Sebald, and Germany's largest museum of national cultural history. The twentieth century is the Documentation Centre at the Nazi party rally grounds, the surviving Zeppelin grandstand and the unfinished Congress Hall, and Courtroom 600, where the Nuremberg trials were held and where a court still sits. The old town is a careful post-war reconstruction and not a survival: an air raid on 2 January 1945 destroyed the great majority of it, and what looks medieval was largely rebuilt from photographs and salvaged stone - confirm the figures. The Christkindlesmarkt from late November to Christmas Eve is why a large share of visitors come, and in those weeks the city is booked out and expensive.
Nuremberg old town inside the walls, from the Imperial Castle down to the Hauptmarkt and the Nazi party rally grounds to the south-east, Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany
The old town, the walls, the castle courtyard and garden and the former rally grounds are open ground, free and walkable at any hour. The Imperial Castle interiors, the Deep Well and the Sinwell Tower keep daily hours with shorter ones in winter and charge a few euros. Most city museums, including the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, the Documentation Centre and the Memorium, are closed on Mondays and open late one evening a week - confirm each. The Documentation Centre has been under building work with the exhibition in reduced or temporary form, so confirm what is open before travelling. Courtroom 600 is a working court and is shown only when no trial sits - confirm. The Christmas market runs daily from late November to 24 December.