Nuremberg – The Travelling Ginger

We had originally planned to do Nuremberg to Stuttgart, however when we realised how close we were to Austria (believe it or not.. my geography is terrible!) we decided to change things up a bit and tick a new country off for Mark. Due to travel time that meant we had a shorter morning in Nuremberg, so it was all about cramming in as much as possible in 3hrs!

We started the day by looking at all the pretty historical bridges located around the town. The blue sky and still water meant perfect reflection photos. The American in the pub the night before recommend we walked the city walls – unfortunately, they are now closed for the season.. but we still got to see more of the medieval buildings so the walk was still worth it.

As it was now the 25th it meant the markets were open! It’s not the same in the daytime, but we still wanted a quick explore before heading to our next train. As we had only had a croissant for breakfast, it only seemed right we had more local cuisine to top us up – 3 sausages and sauerkraut in a roll. Delicious! Every other stand was selling a fruit bread called Hutzelbrot so this was our breakfast pudding. Advertised as deliciously dense, chewy, moist and flavorful. I’ll give them dense…. but everything else about it was absolutely foul, and for the first time we had to bin a market treat 😭

You won’t be surprised to hear that the first leg of our journey train (to Munich) was delayed. This gave us super twitchy arse as the original time only gave us 15 minutes to change – however it turns out German trains communicate with each other, and our connecting train to Innsbruck would be waiting for us! The trains in and around Germany (ICE) have been relatively quiet and we’ve been able to get a seat. The trains to Europe (EC) were the total opposite, and because we hadn’t booked a seat we spent the whole journey wedged by the toilet with a constant stench of fishy piss 🤢

We arrived in Innsbruck with about 2hrs daylight left and were keen to get to the Hungerburg Christmas Market half way up the mountain. Although small it was definitely worth it for the views, the Glühwein and Kiachl (deep fried in boiling lard.. yummy!) As if we hadn’t eaten enough, we got back to ground level and sniffed out a few more treats before heading to a pub to watch the England game. One thing I will say is the price of everything seems a lot more expensive here! Unfortunately the main sports pub was full, so we found another sports bar just on the outskirts. This was a much more ‘manly’ place with the scent of Lynx Africa in the air 🤣 but we got a seat, they had beer for Mark so that’s all that’s needed. A win would have been nice though…

We had a few hours left to kill in Frankfurt before heading to Nuremberg, so we went back through skid row and to the love lock bridge across the river. Although nowhere near as impressive as the one in Cologne, it’s still worth visiting to see the skyline and the pretty Autumn colours on the other side. We grabbed a much quicker breakfast in one of their coffee shops – Mark thought his bagel was delicious, but I thought it tasted like sweaty armpits 🤢

Onto the train and the dodgy characters continued. I’m all for doing whatever to make yourself feel fabulous, but when you look like Pete Burns and Katie Price’s love child I really feel it’s time to stop… Behind us there was a big arguement going on. I would love to know what it was about because I’m a nosey cow but unfortunately it was all in a different language (definitely not German) I did however understand the part where he called her a stupid bitch 😬

No picture of Pete.. so here we are supporting a local German business 😬

We arrived in Nuremberg and instantly fell in love with the place. No more dodgy characters for a start! We dropped our cases off at the hotel and headed out to find the markets. Turns out we hadn’t researched the dates as thoroughly as we thought, and the markets actually started the following day! There is so much to see and do in Nuremberg that it didn’t matter, and we would still get to see them the following morning when they opened.

One of the very few streets starting the markets early!

Nuremberg is such a pretty place and just what you would expect a Bavarian town to look like. It’s famous for it’s imperial castle, half timbered houses, cobblestoned squares and bridges. We walked up the giant hill to the castle and were really lucky to pretty much have the whole place to ourselves. There’s some gorgeous views up there and a great place to watch the sunset. It was here that we had our first taste of Lebkuchen – the German spiced treat traditionally eaten at Christmas. We also found a German bar selling beer tasters, which Mark loved (and I hated because beer is foul 🤣) but they also sold wine so all was good!

On our walk to another watering hole we grabbed another snack – Mandeln. Crunchy, warm, sweet nuts.. what more could you want! We fell into yet another Irish bar because it looked like it had good atmosphere. It was here that we met a group of blokes, one of whom lives in Birmingham.. and even knows a paramedic Mark used to work with. The conversation with him was beyond fascinating, but certainly not suitable for the blog 🤣 we also got chatting to an American who shared our views of Frankfurt. Trying to explain the difference between Birmingham and the Black Country was particularly challenging and he was incredibly animated about the whole thing!

What we’ve seen of Nuremberg so far has been great as its such a charming place – we cannot wait to explore again in the morning.

Tag: Nuremberg

Nuremberg 🇩🇪 to Innsbruck 🇦🇹

Nuremberg 🇩🇪