Nuremberg and Our First Train Experience

I have been a miserably bad blogger recently. I currently have at least 3 posts saved as drafts that I have yet to finish. I'd like to say that I have been busy lately, but that's not entirely true. Although I have been somewhat more busy over all, I also had enough free time to binge watch all of Dexter on Netflix last weekend and feel horrible about myself afterwords. One of these days, I may just pick up a hobby that doesn't involve my computer.

Anyway, Greg left several weeks ago to play Army at a school in Bavaria. He's nearly done and has been very proud of himself for everything he's accomplished, so we decided to have some fun this weekend while he was off. We decided to head to Nuremberg!



Since Nuremberg is the closest major city to where Greg is in school, we booked a hotel there and met up after his classes were finished for the weekend. This was the first time either of us had ridden a train or stayed in a hotel in Germany.

It probably seems odd to have been in Europe for 6 months and never taken a train before. Despite the size of our city, it only has one train station, which is a little over a mile walk from our home. Most of our friends who have taken the train use it to access neighboring cities without having to drive. We've never really done this, but after this weekend we may be more open to the consideration.

If you aren't familiar with the German train system, it seems extremely confusing. Aside from the very rare use of Marta in Atlanta or my trip to Paris in 9th grade, I had never really ridden a train. On Wednesday, Augustus and I walked to the station to book a trip, but I ultimately left empty handed because I was so confused.

Germany has several different lines and systems. S-Bahn trains are the local trains that connect different cities and "suburbs" around a particular area, like Frankfurt and the cities surrounding it. U-Bahn trains are essentially the subway in larger sized cities like Frankfurt and Nuremberg. "VIA" trains are S-Bahn trains that make fewer stops at major points of interest in the area served by S-Bahn. Regional trains, labeled with the letters "RE" serve a larger region reaching different cities outlying the S-Bahn area, but are not exactly considered to be long distance and aren't much faster than an S-Bahn train. You could probably take Regional trains anywhere in Germany for much cheaper than an ICE train, but it would take you twice as long and you would have to transfer several times in between. Intercity-Express or "ICE" trains are the fast ones that connect major cities throughout the country relatively quickly. (Supposedly, they can go up to 300 km/hr. On my trip, the ICE trains didn't top 130 km/hr, which is the same as the recommended speed on the autobahn)

So, all of this seems a little confusing, right? That's what I originally thought as well. When I looked over my options of how to get from the hauptbahnhof in my city to the one in Nuremberg, I ended up with a giant print out of connections and had no idea how to read.

It looks something like this.

There are two different fares listed. The "Savings Fare" is a fare that covers only the trains and connections listed on that particular ticket. "Normal Fare" covers any connections on any trains that will take you from point A to point B (as listed on your ticket). I did not completely understand this originally, so I bought I normal ticket and totally wasted my money. My concern was whether or not I would be able to make my connection in time at the Frankfurt train station. 10 minutes to me did not seem like enough time to get from one platform to another, but clearly I'm much more accustomed to the Atlanta and Denver airports than to a train station. Even the largest stations are not that big. 10 minutes is more than enough time to get off of one train and onto another.

In the future, we will definitely plan ahead (Savings Fare rates must be purchased at least 3 days in advance) and save 20 or 30 Euros. The rail system is convenient and simple (once you understand it) but not always cheap. The sooner in advance you buy tickets, the cheaper they will be.

Another mistake I made was reserving a seat on the train on the trip to Nuremberg. If you select to take an ICE train, it will automatically prompt you to reserve a seat for 4 Euro. Reservations are not required, but the prompts may lead you to believe they are. There were only 3 other passengers in my car on the trip to Nuremberg. Reserving a seat was totally unnecessary and I was probably the only one to do so. If you reserve a seat, when you get on the train you'll see that above your seat, in small red lettering, it will state your intended start and end stations on that train. (IE: Frankfurt --> Nuremberg) If you do not reserve a seat, you simply have to sit anywhere that does not have the red lettering above it. No one on either train I took had reserved a seat.
I do believe, however, there are times it may be worthwhile to reserve. If you are on a train that is listed as being a very busy route (it tells you when you book) and you plan to travel with friends or as a family, go ahead and consider reserving a spot. My train back from Nuremberg was listed as one of the "busy" routes and was already packed when I got on it. There was no room left for two people to sit beside each other if they wanted.  If you are traveling with children, I would definitely recommend reserving seats, even on a less busy route, to be sure you're able to sit together. For one individual traveling with limited luggage, it's probably not worth the 4 Euro unless you just really can't stand walking through cars on a busy train searching for a seat.

Greg was close enough to Nuremberg that he was able to jump on an S-Train in a small, outlying town and take it straight into the city. My train got there first, so I wondered around the city for a little while before ultimately getting tired and deciding to sit in McDonald's at the station and drink coffee until his train came. Let me just say, McDonald's here is surprisingly good compared to McDonald's in America which I would pretty much avoid if at all possible. I don't know who perpetuated this lie that portion sizes in Europe are smaller than the US, because that's not at all what we have experienced. Aside from soda which will come in a very small glass and does not have free refills, everywhere we eat offers way more food for the price than what we were accustomed to in Colorado. I guess experiences vary?

After meeting Greg at the station and reminiscing about how much this felt like our frequent visits as a long distance couple back and forth from Georgia to Colorado, we headed to check into the hotel and dump off our bags. We stayed at an Ibis Hotel, which is essentially a chain of discount hotels around Europe. I don't know how exactly to compare it to an American hotel, but I would describe it as being a step above a very clean hostel. The whole hotel appeared very sterile with little decoration and completely white everything. All a hotel in Europe includes is basically a bed to sleep on and a bathroom to use, but was much cleaner and more organized that I would consider most American budget hotels. We did not pay the extra 10 Euro a person for breakfast, but in the future we may do so out of convenience. I could easily just eat a croissant for breakfast and be held over until lunch, but Greg needs more substance than that which is sometimes difficult to find early on a Sunday morning in Germany.


We actually really enjoyed Nuremberg. I was worried that we would spend a lot of money on trains and hotels, only to find it a boring city with little to do. It was actually the exact opposite. We spent the evening walking around through the different areas, had dinner and watched a rugby game with a group of Irish men who were surprisingly interested in the fact Greg was from Texas. We were surprised, as we usually are, by how friendly everyone was to Americans. We also experienced the strange sight of a group of Germans holding candles wondering around the city and singing around different monuments. I'm still not entirely sure what was going on with that.

Part of the wall guarding the Old City

On Sunday, after checking out of the hotel, we locked our bags in lockers at the train station so we could explore the city some more. We ate breakfast at a cafe along the incredibly long walk to the Nuremberg Courthouse where the Nuremberg Trials took place.

The courthouse itself does not look at all impressive from the outside. Actually, it's almost impossible to get a good picture of it because there is a used car store immediately in front of the gate. The museum was open on Sundays, though, so we decided to take a look. The actual court room where the trials were held, number 600, is still in use today so it is not always open for viewing. Because it was Sunday and no trials were being held, we were able to see the actual court room before entering the museum. It was a beautiful room, but nothing out of the ordinary from what you would expect of a courtroom anywhere in the world. The only way to distinguish the magnitude of what happened there was the small interactive TV's they had set up that played clips from the trials demonstrating the common backdrop of the courtroom.

After viewing Courtroom 600, you were directed upstairs to the museum exhibit. I won't lie, I was expecting the museum to be pretty boring, but it was actually really good. Instead of only covering the trials themselves, it covered a huge amount of information relevant to understand the importance of the Nuremberg Trials. It started with the history of the Geneva Conventions and prior war crime trials after WWI that were generally seen as a huge failure. It discussed how evidence was collected throughout WWII and hand carried by allied forces in trunks for the trials. It showed why the Nuremberg Trials were so different and so important because they were essentially the first international military war crime trials to take place.

Trunk full of evidence from concentration camps

Specially designed benches for the defendants

Because there were many different countries represented speaking several different languages, this switchboard enabled translations to be seamlessly provided via headphones.

At the end of the exhibit, it also reflected on the media coverage and downfalls of the trials. It questioned whether or not justice was really served through the trials. There was also a separate, smaller exhibit that discussed how things have changed and how Germany has dealt with their history as well as what the international community has done to prevent war crimes and genocide since the Holocaust. I wish we would have had more time to view that particular section of the museum, but the whole exhibit is extremely long and we were pushing it pretty close to when we needed to leave. When I use to work in public health, we worked very closely with a local refugee program and occasionally heard the horrible stories of war crimes and genocide overseas and wondered what exactly was being done to stop it. The reality is that we're not doing much at all. There was a very moving map on the wall of the museum listing all of the occurrences of genocide and crimes against humanity world wide since the Holocaust.

Newspaper after the execution of several Nazis

The whole exhibit was extremely heavy. There is also a museum at the Nazi rally-grounds on the south side of the city that had mixed reviews online. We didn't visit because we didn't have time and they were a good distance away. Greg wants to go back to Nuremberg before we leave Germany, so maybe we'll see that next time around.

After being thoroughly depressed, we ate some Mexican inspired tapas before heading to the train station to wait on our trains back home. One day, I'm going to write a blog post on my opinions of the food here in Germany. Personally, I do not like traditional German food. It's entirely too focused on meat and breads and barely seasoned. They do, however, do a pretty decent job with foreign foods. We've had some amazing Italian and Mexican food since arriving, but would rather pass on the schnitzel and wurst.

I think this weekend really helped us to gain the confidence to get out and do things without having to feel overly apologetic or worried about coming across as dumb tourists. For the first 6 months we were here, I think we felt like confused American tourists completely ignorant to customs and traditions. Now, we have no problems figuring out the train schedules, ordering food at a restaurant or buying wine at the store. Hopefully, we'll get more opportunities to venture out around Germany.


Oh, and for anyone curious, Augustus did not come with me on this trip. He stayed behind and played with a few of his dog friends for the weekend. In retrospect, I could have brought him along and we would have been fine, but probably irritated and unhappy with me. Next time, we may bring him. He just really needs to kick his bratty habit of whining until I agree to carry him around the city!