Germany! This country means much for me. When in 18th century young German princess Sophie Auguste Friederike von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg became Russian empress Catherine II she invited her own team from Germany to live and work in Russia. There was a lot of famous families among that settlers: von Benckendorffs, von Krusenstierns... and my ancestors Yahtenfelds. So in some way I consider Germany as my motherland (as well as Poland :)). This summer I intended to visit Munich, but there were some difficulties and my route was changed so I need to go to Nuremberg - the other old german city which is situated in the same region - Bavaria. Actually the only thing I new about Nuremberg before is the fact that it was the place where German officials involved in the Holocaust and other war crimes were brought before an international tribunal. But after my trip I realized that it was my luck that I visited this city. Well the city is very old, it was established around 11th century it is filled with ancient churches, castles and the other buildings. The fact is the majority of these buildings are not so ancient they were restored in 50s-60s as Nuremberg was completely destroyed by American Air Forces during the World War 2. Each building in Nuremberg was destroyed and each building was rebuild! Germans did the great job saving their cultural treasures! The most amazing places in the city are that three churches: Frauenkirche, Lorenzkirche and. Btw there is information for the Christian part of my friends: I attended Holly Mass in one of Catholic Churches of Nuremberg and was nicely impressed how many people were there, significantly more then in Prague. Even our guide said that people here take G-d seriously! So the Frauenkirche is famous because of its not-installed spire. The story says that when that extremely beautiful spire was created the money which required for its installation ran out, and Nuremberg's officials decided to reconfigure it and use as fountain.
Well, beer lovers there are many places of interest for you because Nuremberg is famous with its Smoked beer which you can buy only here. A long time ago there was a fire in a farmer's warehouse and as a result a half of his barley was destroyed and the other part was smoked, however the thrifty farmer decided to use this defective barley for beer production and the result was surprisingly tasty!
I mentioned a fountain before, well there are a few other fountains in the city, for example this "Family Carousel"
it's inspirited by one of Hans Sachs' mastersongs (Hans Sach was a German "mastersinger", poet, playwright and shoemaker.)
The idea here is quite witty to show different stages of marriage, from: "I can't live without you!" up to "You are bustard!!!"
The Marketplace is also a very interesting part of Nuremberg - it's the square surrounded with some beautiful medieval houses and full of delicious and extremely chip fruits, vegetables and snacks. Actually it is the most famous marketplace in Germany as it's the place there the famous Christmas bazaar takes place. The sad thing here is the way how it was build - in 1349 more then 600 Jews who had lived around were burned alive and even the ground on that their houses appeared was collected and removed.
And the final detail I noticed: this building is a special nursing house for seniors and just across there is student's residence. It was a special idea to accommodate seniors together with noisy young neighbors to make their last years not so boring.
