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.