Nürnberg (Nuremberg)

After Berlin, we went to Dresden for 2 nights (Sept 25-26), where we met up with my friends for a few drinks. The next day we did a bike tour around Dresden. Unfortunately, the weather didn't co-operate, but we did discover this awesome wine called Federweisser.

The wineries, eager to celebrate their harvest, let the pressed grape juice ferment for a week or two, then bottle it for consumption. The result is alcoholic sparkling grape juice. It's quite delicious and is traditionally consumed with onion-cake which resembles quish. The cap has to be left open since the contents are still fermenting, which creates CO2 gas. The longer you leave it, the more alcoholic it gets. You can get it during the fall for a few Euros for a liter bottle.

The next day (Sept 27) we left Dresden for the city of Nürnberg (for some reason it's spelled Nuremberg in English). If you think you've heard of this place, you probably have. This is where the Nürnberg trials were held (the trials that prosecuted the Nazi war criminals).

The city is probably as large as Dresden. The city center, the old city, is enclosed in an impressive medieval wall. Apparently Nürnberg suffered the second worst firebombing during WWII, after Dresden. So a lot of the buildings have been rebuilt in the last 50 years.

We arrived sometime in the afternoon, and the weather was quite miserable. After we checked into our hotel, we started our walking tour.

Inside the city center within the wall.

An old guard tower.

An old clock tower beside a modern looking building.

A fruit market beside an old looking structure, surrounded by modern buildings.

Adam and Lacey posing in front of a fountain.

This fountain depicts the different types of marriage life.

A cute mouse running around a tapas restaurant we had lunch at.

A pretty cool shot inside the city center.

The entrance to the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. That translates to German National Museum. According to wikitravel.org, it's "One of the largest museum of art and crafts in the German-speaking countries."

Pillars at the entrance to the museum which lists the basic rights of man, in many different languages.

A bridge crossing a river that goes through the city center.

A picturesque shot.

A shot of the city.

A panoramic of the city. Unfortunately, it was a miserable day, so I couldn't get any nice shots.


At night, we found a bar that served some Czech beer on tap. I had to make sure that Adam and Lacey tried one of my favorite beers, Budweiser. Not the crappy American beer. The original Czech beer. We also tried the famous Pilsner Urquell. Later, we met up with my friend Patricia for a few more drinks, who's working in Nürnberg.

Berlin & Sachsenhausen (Oranienburg)

After Oktoberfest in Munich, my friends and I hopped on an airplane and flew to Berlin, which we stayed at very briefly (less than 24h). We saw the main sites, but we were really hurried and tired. Really bad planning on our part. We were trying to fit too much into too little time.

We saw this huge crowd gathering in-front of this really fancy hotel right near the Brandenburg Gate. Thankfully it wasn't Paris Hilton or some other obnoxious celebrity. Apparently, it was the queen of Denmark or something of that nature.


Lacey and Adam looking pretty tired in front of the Brandenburg gate. I'm sure that was the result of the Oktoberfest festivities the night before.

It was a beautiful day in Berlin. Here's the Reichstag.

A panoramic of Berlin.

The next day, we rented a car and ended up with a Mercedes! Okay, it's not a Mercedes S500, but still, it's a Mercedes.

We decided to visit a concentration camp in Oranienburg, north of Berlin, called Sachsenhausen. The former concentration camp was turned into a museum. It wasn't a death camp like Auschwitz, but a significant amount of people did die here. After the war, the Soviets turned this place into a prison. And sometime after, it was finally turned into a museum. The timeline of this is pretty fuzzy to me right now... I'll have to look it up again.

The entrance gate reads "work makes you free".

The main guard tower. Originally designed such that the entire camp grounds could be seen from this building.

Inside one of the prisons...

These are remnants of the prison cells.

The facilities.

You can see how huge this place is. Despite it's huge size, it became overpopulated during WWII.

A monument the Soviets built after WWII.

You can see the main guard tower in the distance.

Here, people were placed in this pit, and executed with a gun. The executions were performed in this pit to decrease the noise from the gunshot. I suppose it'd be absolute chaos if all the prisoners knew that they would eventually be executed.

This is a secondary prison camp that was built as an addon to the main complex.

A panoramic from one of the corners of concentration camp. The camp was built in a triangular shape so that everything could be seen from the main guard tower. The main guard tower is located behind that giant obelisk structure.

Oktoberfest

When you think of Germany, you think of sausage, good beer, and of course Oktoberfest. Oktoberfest is a 2 week festival that takes place in Munich. It starts near the end of September, and goes until the first Sunday in October.

For the last week of September, two of my friends, Lacey and Adam, flew to Germany so we could travel together around Germany for a week. The first stop was Munich, during the first weekend of Oktoberfest. We stayed in Munich for 2 nights, and went to Oktoberfest on the first Sunday. On the Saturday, we did some exploring around the old city.

Walking right out of one of the subway stations, we encountered this. Not sure what this is. I
really have to go back to Munich to experience what it's like without Oktoberfest going on.

A nice pedestrian walkway lined with shops.

A nice square lined with shops.

Another view of the square.

Before we embarked on our day of Oktoberfesting, we decided to check out the Oktoberfest fairgrounds to get a sober look of what we were getting ourselves into. We took the subway to the fair grounds, and when we surfaced, this is what we encountered. Massive crowds and bright colourful lights. This is like the CNE in Toronto, except with 14 huge tents filled with a lot of drunk people.

You can see rides in the background all lit up.

We decided to check out some of the tents to see which one we wanted to go in. The first tent we encountered was the Hofbräuhaus tent.

We walked in, and it was pure chaos. People were dancing on the benches and tables holding their 1L beer glasses (called a Maß) singing with the live band. People were stumbling along the aisles trying to find the toilet. It was very lively and very overwhelming. The atmosphere was something I've never felt before. It was insane.

As you can see, the tent is HUGE! Notice the hops hanging from the ceiling as a decoration.

Since we were all tired, we decided to leave the fair grounds and find some food. We heard that the Hofbräuhaus restaurant in the Munich city center was a good place to go. We got there, and it was like a small scale version of the Hofbräuhaus Oktoberfest tent. Very crowded and a very lively atmospshere.

We found a quieter spot in the restaurant, and sat down to eat. Not out of choice, but because that was the only spot open. It wasn't very quiet, however. There was a table full of drunken Italians having a good time.

A band playing some good ol' music,

Lacey and I enjoying our 1L beer.

The patio of the Hofbräuhaus.

We started out at Oktoberfest just before 9am. Out of sheer luck, our hotel happened to be on the same subway line to the fair grounds. Despite how unethically early it was to start drinking (the clock reads 8:39am), there were hoards of people ready to celebrate Germany's most famous festival.

We got to the fairgrounds at around 9am. By that time, there were already a significant amount of people there.

Here's a shot of the Armbrustschützenzelt tent.

And the Hofbräuhaus tent, which we decided to camp out in. It was more of a decision between Adam and I. Lacey didn't want to go there because of the ridiculousness that we saw the night before in that tent.

The doors opened shortly after we arrived, and we were able to get a seat at a table, which is essential, since beer is only served to those who have a spot at a table.

Hops hanging from the ceiling. A fitting decoration for this event.

You can see that it isn't really that busy yet.

The waitress carrying 6 1L beers. That probably weighs something like 9kg total.

Another shot of the tent.

Adam, Lacey, and I enjoying our first 1L of tasty brew. The watch reads 10:11am.

Things start to get a bit lively as beer gets consumed.

One of the guys from the group of Italians at our table. In fact our table consisted of Americans, Australians, Canadians, and Italians. No Germans...


The band started to play at around noon. It started off with the song "Ein Prosit Der Gemütlichkeit".

Ein Prosit, ein Prosit Der Gemütlichkeit Ein Prosit, ein Prosit Der Gemütlichkeit.
After a while, it seems customary to stand on the benches.

You can see it's pretty full now. This is probably taken at some point in the early afternoon.

A closer shot of the band.

At around 5pm, I decided to take a stroll outside of the tent. It was a beautiful weekend. Notice the rides in the background.

This is in between two of the tents.

The hill behind Hofbräuhaus. It's littered with people who had a little too much to drink.

I strolled into the Hacker-Festzelt tent, which was right next to Hofbräuhaus.

The decor was different, but the madness was the same.

Unfortunately, my finger got in this shot. I wasn't very sober at this point. The Hacker-Festzelt tent was also massive, and the crowd was quite lively.

I believe this is the outdoor beer garden outside of the Hofbräuhaus tent.

At some point, it turned to the evening... I was very impressed that I was able to make it until then.

At the end of the night, at around 8pm, I was done... This picture pretty much summarizes my condition at that time... Thanks to Lacey, we were able to get back to our hotel. Unfortunately, by this time, Adam has been lost for a few hours. He wandered away at some point earlier in the evening, and he was MIA for 6 hours until about 11pm, when he finally made it to our hotel.

My friend Mike also went to Oktoberfest. He has some great pics on his website.