Yesterday I flew early from Mallorca to Nuremberg Germany, where we have the German club playoffs this Saturday & Sunday.

I rented my car from Wiber and forgot that they only open at 7 AM and I had an 8:45 flight. That wasn’t a big problem, except that the shuttle took a half an hour to arrive and by that time I had already ordered an Uber as had several other people. So it’s something to keep in mind if you rent from Wiber, or really any other car company because there was not an option to just leave the car and the keys in a box somewhere. As it turned out, I arrived at the airport in plenty of time because my flight didn’t board until around 8:45. I booked through Condor, but on a Marabu plane which was fine. I was able to carry my rackets on the plane with no problem.

Nuremberg is in Bavaria about an hour by train from Munich. The Pegnitz River runs through the city.

Yesterday I walked from my hotel near the train station to the old city and up to the Nuremberg Castle. Much of the city and the castle were destroyed during World War II, but has been rebuilt. The original Castle was built in the 1000s on a sandstone ridge. It was added to and remodeled many times over the ensuing centuries.

There’s a well on the property which was excavated through the sandstone… since the castle is on a hill, they had to dig down many hundred of meters, which probably took 7 to 10 years. It’s covered by the little building you see in front of the tower below on the top right.

Sinwell tower was one of the few buildings not destroyed during World War II. I walked up to the top and the views from there of the city were very nice, lots of red roofs and church steeples. There are a lot of churches in Nuremberg.

I also walked past the Market Halle, full of vendors, selling fruits and vegetables from the area, and by the City Hall (Rathaus).

I went into two of the churches. Below are photos from St, Lorenz Church

Below are photos from Sebalduskirche.

There are many many restaurants in cafés in this old city center, and in the late afternoon they were really busy.

Before I return to my hotel, I walked into the Kaufhaus department store to check out the chocolate selection. Lindt seems to be going all in on pistachio flavors this year, though some of the bars had only 1.5% pistachios in them.