Christmas Town: Nuremberg & the Christkindlesmarkt
Written: Dec 22 '02 (Updated Nov 05 '06)
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Pros: Pretty Gothic old town, Christkindelsmarkt, lots of museums and culture.
Cons: Cold winters!
The Bottom Line: A beautiful old town that looks as if it were made for Christmas, and well worth the journey.
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| lyagushka's Full Review: Nuremburg |
Because my father was stationed in Germany as a US Army officer, I was born in Nuremberg, Germany more than 30 years ago. Since I grew up in the States and didn't return to Europe until I was in my twenties, I knew little about this Bavarian town, but always harbored a mild interest in it. It's strange to grow up with a personal connection to a place that one has never seen and knows almost nothing about. So to satisfy my curiosity my husband and I decided we would make the journey to visit Nuremberg and see what it had to offer. We spent three full days in early December in Nuremberg, right in the center of the old town, browsing the stalls of the Christkindlesmarkt, soaking up the non-tacky Christmas atmosphere, quaffing glühwein and German beers and snarfing down bratwürsts.
We packed a lot into those three days and there's a lot to talk about from our trip, so I'll start with the...
Christkindlesmarkt
The name of this famous market is sometimes translated into English as the "Kris Kringle Mart." The German word means Christ-Child Market, and it is the largest, oldest and most famous of the German Christmas markets. Observed every year since at least 1628 and probably since as early as the middle of the 16th century, the market begins in late November and continues until Christmas Eve. Admission is free and an online schedule of events is available. (See the end of this review for a few links.) Here you will see vendors selling all kinds of ornaments, decorations, clothing and food, carnival rides for children, performances by choral groups and other musicians - both organized events and impromptu buskers - and also appearances of the "Christ Child," a Nuremberg child elected to this position for two years.
When I was growing up one of my favorite parts of Christmas was decorating the tree with the ornaments that my parents had bought at this very market when I was an infant. There were various kinds of painted toy ornaments: a golden little pine-cone angel with gold hair, a meticulously painted wooden sled, green and red velvet musical instruments and most of all the Nuremberg angel for the top of the tree with a simple velvet dress, golden wings, a wax face and a candle and hymn book in her hands. My hopes were high that I would be able to find similar decorations during my visit. At the same time, I was afraid that I would find nothing but mass-produced, soulless plastic tchochkies from China.
The reality was that there was a bit of both authenticity and schlock. We did manage to find a beautiful Christmas angel with a blue velvet dress and wax face. I felt very lucky to be able to buy one of these, despite the steep price (€55). This angel very closely resembles the one my parents have, and I know that I will see her once a year for the rest of my life. Besides the angel, we found about a dozen toy ornaments that we liked - mostly for reasonable prices. They adorn our tree as I write this.
Aside from all the decorations and other items, there are deliciously fattening foods to sample in the market. You can buy a half-meter wiener in a bun, a plate-full or bun-full of bratwürst sausages, onion and potato cakes deep fried in wholesome old-fashioned lard, thick cut french fries/chips/frites as well as other assorted fried foods, roasted nuts, the famous Nuremberg lebkuchen (soft gingerbread cookies - delicious!) and other desserts. The traditional beverage to wash down your grub with is glühwein, a mulled red wine that we found perfectly hideous. We heard someone explaining in English that the drink is made with very cheap red wine, "the cheaper, the better." Luckily, a non-alcoholic, mulled hot fruit drink was also available. We drank this often and found it wonderfully fortifying in the chilly German winter.
We enjoyed all the time we spent at the market, but found it very crowded from mid-morning until it closed in the evening. Our first visit there was fairly early in the morning when it was much less crowded, and I'm glad we had the chance to browse at our leisure. At peak times, I actually began to feel somewhat claustrophobic as we were so tightly pressed on all sides.
Another must see in Nuremberg is the famous Schöner Brunnen fountain in the Hauptmarkt. This towering, ornamented treasure was carefully covered during World War II to protect it from Allied bombing. A wrought iron fence encloses it and there is a gold ring (bronze actually) looped around one part of the fence. Turning this ring three times is supposed to grant the turner's wish. There was actually a line of tourists waiting for their chance to turn the ring and have their picture snapped while doing so.
The old town of Nuremberg is home to some wonderful restaurants and bratwürsthaus. The atmosphere in the bratwürsthaus is convivial, casual, just a bit rowdy and fun. You will often share a large common table with friendly, hungry strangers. Silverware and napkins will be found in a mug set out on the table, along with the communal bread basket, which holds freshly baked seeded buns, breads and soft pretzels. You are expected to keep track of your bread consumption and report to the waiter when your check is tallied. These places serve the famous Nuremberg bratwürst sausages. They are fairly skinny and short sausage links that bear some resemblance, in appearance at least, to American breakfast links. In a bratwürsthaus, you can order any number of bratwürst sausages on pewter plates and snarf them down with potato salad, sauerkraut, or horseradish and mustard. Typically a few other hearty but simple dishes (usually meat-based) can be ordered as well.
We enjoyed eating at the Bratwürst-Häusle (next to Saint Sebaldus church), the Bratwürst-Roslein (on the Rathausplatz) and the Helig-Geist-Spital situated on a bridge over the Pegnitz River. We also ate at the Goldenes Posthorn (near Albrecht Dürer platz), which had decent food but was a little more formal and expensive than the other restaurants and also lacked the friendly tavern ambiance of the others. We enjoyed the uniformly speedy and attentive service as much as we detested the equally uniform cigarette haze that adorned the dining rooms in all these establishments. In all the places I ate, I found the food decent to good but not great. For a diet based on meat, potatoes, wheat, eggs and cheese, I thought the Bavarians had developed a fairly impressive cuisine. The factor that could make or break the meal for me turned out to be the atmosphere of the place more than the food, and with my culinary expectations set appropriately for tavern fare, I had some wonderful meals.
One other very special place to eat is a famous pastry shop on Winklerstrasse called Confiserie Neef. The selection, size and beauty of the pastries offered at this place made my eyes bug out like...well, like a bug-eyed frog. We stopped in early on our first morning in town and had some hot tea to go with my apple pastry and my husband's walnut strudel. The pastries were of course of the hearty German variety rather than the delicate French style. They were both fabulous and well worth the modest prices we paid. I only regret we didn't make it back to try the hot chocolate on a second visit. Do stop in for a coffee and snack if you're in the old center of Nuremberg.
Albrecht-Dürer-Haus museum I didn't realize that the Renaissance painter Albrecht Dürer was a native of Nuremberg until my visit to this city. I'll be honest and say that I'd never been a huge fan of his works, but I was certainly game to have a look at a collection of his paintings, since I've more than once been won over by single-artist painting exhibitions. Unfortunately, this didn't happen here, since few of Dürer's works were on display at the museum. Instead the Dürer House serves to educate visitors about the daily life of Dürer and his family, as well as set the painter in his historic context. There is a good audioguide available in English to guide you through the four-story house. You may also observe a museum worker reproducing some of Dürer's woodblock prints. These can be bought for a few euros. You can find the museum on the Tiergärtnerplatz. It is open 10am-5pm Friday through Wednesday and until 8pm on Thursdays. We spent about an hour and a half visiting this museum, though I could have spent longer if my husband had had more patience. Admission price is €4 for adults, including the audioguide.
Another site we took in, the Medieval Dungeons Museum, is just off the Hauptmarkt and costs only 2 euros for admission and a guided tour. Unfortunately, the tour is all in German and the museum can only be visited with the group tour, so even if you don't speak or understand German, you are obliged to squeeze into the small cells and torture chambers with lots of other people who benefit from the lecture and obscure the very things you're trying to see. However, there is a fairly good brochure available in English that describes the museum and its rooms. Since they are all underground, they survived the World War II bombing that destroyed so much of the rest of the city. In fact, the dungeons were even used as shelters by the Nazis during the war. Visiting the rooms and reading the brochure will give you a fairly vivid and unpleasantly immediate sense of the medieval "justice" system in Germany. Though the brochure is quick to point out that torture was a thoroughly foreign practice introduced to Germany by the Romans (?), a quick peek at the chambers and implements will show with what gusto the practice was taken up. Unsurprisingly, the rooms feel heavy and oppressive, and the 50-minute tour will certainly leave you with a chill and little appetite. Its recommended you eat before, but not just before your visit.
Nuremberg also is home to the Kaiserburg, or the Imperial Castle, which dominates the northwest corner of the old town. From the Tiergärtnerplatz you can walk up the increasingly steep pathway to this old citadel. Construction on it began about 900 years ago. We walked up there one evening before dinner and it was quite cold and windy. It provided us with a lovely view of the rest of the city at night. I understand that parts of the castle itself are open to visitors, but as we were there at night we just wandered around the outside, which was quite impressive in its own right. It was easy to imagine how beautiful this place must be in spring or summer. It would be a fine choice for a picnic lunch in fair weather.
Our impression of the old town of Nuremberg as a whole was that it was really lovely. My father tells me that Nuremberg was nothing more than a pile of rubble when the Allies finished bombing it. But the Germans rebuilt the old town along very traditional lines and used much of the original masonry in the reconstruction. So although little of what is visible in the old town is original, it looks very old. I thought the town of Nuremberg looked as if it were made for Christmas. There were lots of very tasteful holiday decorations: white lights in windows and window-boxes of heather trimmed with greens and red or gold bows. I'm very glad I finally visited the city of my birth, and that I did so around the Christmas holiday.
Even if you have no interest in the Christkindlesmarkt, Nuremberg has a great deal to offer. For a town of such a modest size, there are an astonishing number of museums; enough to cater to nearly any interest. Aside from the museums we visited (and discussed above) there are the German National Museum, the Neues Museum (contemporary art), the Transportation Museum, the Reichsparteitagsgelände (Nazi Party Rally Grounds), and the Nazi Documentation Center among many, many others. A link for more information on the museums of Nuremberg is provided below.
If you are interested in traveling to Nuremberg for the Christkindlesmarkt, be sure to book your accommodations well in advance. We neglected to do this and ended up phoning nine different hotels looking for a room, even though we planned our trip for the first weekend of December. As it was, we secured the last room at the Agneshof Hotel at a rather steep rate.
The weather during our visit was very cold (-8C/18F), with a biting damp wind that made it seem even colder. If you travel here during the winter, be sure to bring warm clothes and dress in layers. I was very grateful to have my long underwear with me. A hat and gloves or mittens are absolute necessities.
Further Information:
When doing online research on this town, it may be necessary to vary your search parameters to accommodate the various ways the town is spelled: Nuremberg, Nürnberg, Nurnberg and Nurenberg are all common variations, and will yield different results.
Here is the link for the Christkindlesmarkt homepage:
http://www.christkindlesmarkt.de/index_e.html
And a link to a page with links for many of Nuremberg's museums:
http://www.museumsgalore.nuremberg.de/
Interested in knowing more about Bavaria and Germany? These reviews should help:
• Munich - Bavaria's capital and a vibrant town
• Bavarian Cuisine is surprisingly diverse and satisfying
• Agneshof Hotel a centrally located hotel where we stayed in Nuremberg
• Aachen is home to a marvelous spa and a World Heritage site
• Dresden - a small Saxon town with a first class collection of museums
If you happen to be craving good German food in San Francisco, I heartily recommend Suppenkuche, for unpretentious German bierhaus charm in the Hayes Valley neighborhood.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Families
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