Saturday, October 19, 2013

Oct 17 -- Nuremberg: The Driving Trip Begins

One of the coolest things in the museum was this mega-
mobile, which started as a bunch of silver balls suspended
on strings at the ceiling, then magically re-formed into
the shapes of 4 different BMW models over the years.
We started our day with a trip to the BMW Museum that was unavailable yesterday. It was interesting to learn that BMW first got hot with airplane engines in WWI and then moved to motorcycles and later cars, borrowing a design from England. WWII ended car production but ramped up airplanes and the aftermath of the war was disastrous: one fateful board meeting, there was a proposal to sell out to Daimler Benz, which was defeated by the small shareholders. Imagine that happening today! So they restarted in cars, and now they own Mini Cooper and Rolls Royce too.


Finally, it was time to see what the car could do and we headed to Nuremberg to a hotel we had located just this morning. The ride was pretty flat and Jim was trying to adapt to the car, so he kept his speed to a mere 90 most of the time. I had waked up totally at 5am, so by noon it was time for a snooze, and I only came to when our navigation system started giving directions (I am called her Edith for now --she's kind of annoying). I helped Jim navigate to the heart of the old town and Agneshof, a hotel with parking. It's on a skinny alley, and a big delivery truck was offloading stuff. We should pulled into the small parking space there, but instead squeezed past the truck (all paint still intact) and found a non-parking space in the adjoining alley. Jim waited in the car while I dashed back to see where the parking was -- we had not yet passed their parking entrance, so I rushed back and guided Jim in -- the underground garage has little car elevators so that 2-3 cars can share a space, stacked on top of each other, and the spaces are tiny. I don't know that our old car, not that big,would have fit. Neither of us were able to stand up next to the car in its slot. When we got the 5 series in 2002 and parked at our hotel in Munich, it seemed just as tight. I was really hoping that this car would seem smaller! Jim offered to let me drive out of the parking lot tomorrow, but I think I'll pass on the chance.

Once into the hotel, we located a place for laundry (laundromats are rare) and hustled over because we are running out of clean clothes and don't want to spend a day waiting. The lady at the shop had about as much English as I do German, but we finally agreed that at noon tomorrow we will have clean clothes. (I hope!) This is not great, because we are driving to Dresden tomorrow, about 3 hours away, and had hoped to arrive earlier to explore. Oh well.

Jim at the castle wall the old guy jumped from
From the laundry, we started to explore the old part of the city. The hotel (and laundry) are located near the old moated palace and we took our first opportunity to head up onto the wall. It was originally built in 1050, and most of it dates to the 1400s. This was the seat of the Holy Roman Empire as well as the Austrian-Hungarian Empire for many years. An old guy came along and we got from him that he jumped from the wall to 21 feet below for his freedom, but I was not clear on freedom from what. He was old enough for this to have been a WWII story.
Another castle view


A view of the street where our parking garage is from the wall.

Then we walked around the town, found the market square, busy with farmer's stands, and a number of other shops. I think we spent the most time at a kitchen store. I love love love European design for the kitchen, alas it was all too expensive or too heavy to bring home. We also found a house or two to buy, but then I would have to improve my German. After several hours of walking around, it was time to collapse in our hotel. We don't have a firm plan for the next 12 days, and I am finding it daunting! We've settled on Dresden for tomorrow, then will head to Denmark, but the devil is in the details and our only real map is our new (and sometimes frustrating) car navigation system.

Most famous Nuremburg resident, Albrecht Durer

Durer was famous for rabbit drawings, even without a
commission, unheard of at the time (1400s)
One of several entry gates. Towers were originally
square and were rounded when cannon balls became
popular, because the balls glanced off the rounded tower.

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