Apr.30 Sunday Nuremberg

We were greeted with sunny skies this morning!   Yay!

 We checked out and dragged our suitcases and backpacks to the train station.

Caught the 10:59 to Nuremberg for a 30-minute ride.

The Nuremberg rail station is impressive!!  This pic was taken later in the day when the lighting was better.

This is what we saw when leaving the train station :

We were on the edge of the (old)town walls and walked a block to an entry point.

After leaving our luggage with the front desk we took off for a discovery walk and lunch.    Just like Bamberg we were amazed at how many sights we were able to squeeze in over the next three hours!

Not far from our hotel we saw .. St.Elizabeth Church, a Roman Catholic church which had been reconstructed in 1802.    It is dedicated to Elizabeth of Hungary.  We entered and caught the last 10-minutes of the service and enjoyed the organ postlude.

It had a simple but very beautiful interior.

We continued into the old town and one of the many gates.

This was a special May Day weekend .. Monday is a public holiday.   It is not only an ancient festival to welcome the spring weather and drive away evil spirits but also an occasion to campaign for and celebrate workers rights.   And, boy were people out and about enjoying the weather.   Remember Coburg's glorious central market square?   Nuremberg has many many of these squares or 'platz's!

At the end of one of these platz's is the church of St.Lorenz (Lawrence), a medieval church mostly completed by 1477!  It was damaged by bombing in WWII and restored.   We also took some inside photos (of course!)

We could've spent a lot more time in here .. but we knew we had to continue to discover the area.    So many neat sights awaited us!    On the way down the hill to see the next square, we got a glimpse of the castle we'll visit tomorrow :

This is the Hospital of The Holy Spirit, built in 1339 to care for ill, elderly and poor people, built partially over the Pegnitz river.   

We arrived at the Haupt-Markt, a fabulous square.   This church anchors one side of the square.   This is brick gothic architecture, built between 1352-62.   We didn't go inside this one, saving it maybe for tomorrow.

They were shooting a dance video in the square.   And on the north side of the square was the .. Beautiful Fountain :

We started back to find our hotel and found a few more sights.

We found another St.Jakob Church, another on the pilgrim road to Santiago.   We actually saw a pilgrim hiker with hiking stick and backpack stamping his pilgrimage passport book inside.

Here's the pilgrimage map of churches and the stamp station ..

We may not be as lucky with the weather tomorrow as we were today.   But, that never stops Oregonians from discovering more interesting sights, does it?

Hopefully we'll get a chance to sleep in a little and do some wash later.

Take care,    Jan & Joe