WEDNESDAY TRAVELED FROM ROTHENBURG TO NUREMBERG FOR THE DAY (August 14, 2013)

We picked Rothenburg as a base for a few days because it was easy to take trains to other nearby cities.  We were both very interested in Nuremberg so we decided to go there on Wednesday.  I looked online and was able to make arrangements for us to join a six hour walking tour.  We were all supposed to meet at the train station in Nuremberg.

Of course we had our wonderful breakfast and we couldn't linger long because our train was scheduled to leave at 9:06 a.m.  Our hotel has a driver, Fritz, and after breakfast he graciously drove us to the train station and tried to help us buy tickets from a machine, but he kept getting interrupted by phone calls so we told him we would just wait for the ticket office to open and buy them there.  It was only about a 5 minute wait until they opened.  We successfully purchased roundtrip tickets and got on the train as scheduled and it was a fairly short train ride to Nuremberg, about 45 minutes total, and I think we changed trains twice before arriving.

We arrived about 9:45 and we had to wait until 10:00 to meet our walking tour group.  We thought we were waiting in the right location and we waited and waited until about 10:15 and never caught sight of them.  I finally called the company and the person told me that, yes, the group had met and left.  He told me to walk over to the information office across the street and he would contact the tour guide and have him come back and "pick us up."  We did, he did and all was well.

The tour guide, Aachin, was delightful.  He was born and raised in Germany and you could tell he loved the history of Germany.  Our group had about 11 people in it so it was manageable and we could hear what Aachin was saying most of the time.  We started the tour in old town and it was very beautiful.

Aachin was THE man for our tour; he had a doctorate in German history, specifically in the Nazi party rallies held in Nuremberg.  He had a ton information about the churches, public buildings, and, of course, the castle there.  We also saw Albrect Durer's house and learned he had a "bitch" of a wife.  David loved Aachin because he used words like bitch, dickhead, dumb dickhead, and various forms of the  "F" word to describe the Nazi leaders.  David said he now wants to get his "f___ing doctorate!"

After the old town tour we jumped on a bus with the group and headed to the Nazi rally grounds.  These grounds were huge by large and they had to be in order to hold 500,000 brown shirts plus spectators.  We walked around the massive stadium that the Nazis started, but did not complete.  It was not completed in that they did not put a roof over it.  There has been much debate about whether a roof could have even been constructed to cover the massive opening due to its weight.  We then walked some more, finally making it to the documentation center where there is a great deal of information on the Nazis.  There our group splintered up with some going into the documentation center, and some going to see more Nazi structures.  Since we were already on borrowed time with sore feet, we opted for the train station and the return to Rothenburg.

That night back in Rothenburg we stopped at the combination grocery/miniature/toy soldier store.  This store was half a small grocery store and the other half was all very detailed miniatures of cars, trains, military vehicles, and toy soldiers made in Germany.  We bought a bottle of wine, two kinds of cheese and salami from the deli, and fresh German bread and butter crackers.  We went back to the room and had a picnic in our room.  Oh, did I mention we had chocolate for dessert?  Yes, this grocery store had a great selection of German made chocolate that we just had to try!  Tonight was not hard to fall asleep even with the Night Watchman outside of our window making his rounds.