We left Munich this morning for Nuremberg, stopping at the McDonalds in the Munich train station before boarding our train. We always eat at McDonalds at least once on any international trip because we are always a little fascinated by the special menu items and even the differences in “the old favorites” across borders. We’ve yet to find a country where McDonalds is as exciting as in Japan (we still can’t get over the McHotdog on the breakfast menu). Germany’s McDonalds menu didn’t have anything particularly wacky, but it did have an Egg McMuffin with bacon (as in real bacon, not the Canadian bacon variety) and a McToast line of sandwiches that were served on pita.

We arrived in Nuremberg mid- to late- morning, stashed our luggage at our hotel (it was too early to check-in) and headed via tram to some of the Nazi historical sites. Nuremberg has a very highly rated Nazi Documentation Center Museum documenting the rise of socialism and the Nazi party in Germany, but given that we’d spent a good part of the day in Dachau the day before, we opted to skip the museum. Instead, we checked out the Congress Hall that was being built for the Nazi party but was never finished, as well as Zeppelin Field and rostrum where Hitler gave some of his larger addresses. Sometimes it feels like there’s a fine line between memorializing and being voyeuristic in sight-seeing related to global traumas, so we didn’t spend a lot of time at either site. Instead, we enjoyed the peaceful walk around the lake and the absence of crowds and stopped for lunch in a delightful biergarten called Gutmann’s.

After lunch, we headed back to old town to explore. Nurnberg is known for its Christmas market and we hurried out to see the Christkindl – a teenage girl around 17 dressed as a Christmas angel who gives an address at the Christmas market and lets children touch her wings – if they’re very gentle.

We got halfway through our tour of old town before it started raining pretty steadily and we opted to go back to the hotel to dry off and rest before dinner. Charles had read some good reviews for a brewery called Hausbrauerei Altstadthof, which did not disappoint. It was warm and cozy (gemütlich), the food was delicious, and the beer just what the doctor ordered for our aching feet and tired bones.

We walked back to our hotel through the Christmas market, stopping for gingerbread (Nurnberg’s signature sweet) and, of course, more gluhwein.