July 28

We departed the ship after breakfast for our final two days of the trip. Our final destination for the day is Prague with a stop in Nuremberg along the way. The heat has finally broken but we were greeted with intermittent rain.

Our guide in Nuremberg is Rolf. Nuremberg was founded around the year 1050 and was the center of Nazi rallies in the 1930’s. Between 1300 -1600 Nuremberg was one of the 5 richest cities in Europe. Today it is more a working class city with a population of 500,000.

Hitler decided to have his Nazi rallies here for two reasons. First, the city has a major railway system making it easy for people to travel there. Secondly, this was the city of Imperial coronations during the middle ages. Hitler saw this as his city for coronation.

Our first stop was at the Nazi parade grounds. Here the Nazis would have massive demonstrations and parades, first with the brown shirt Nazi party members and their shovels, and later as a military force. The rallies would last several days. Surrounding the grounds were high beam lights shot light straight up for 8 km. The light was so intense that it could be seen as far away as the Czech Republic. Today the parade grounds are still used for car races and rock concerts but is in disrepair. Next to the parade grounds is the Nazi Congress Hall that was started in 1935 but never finished.

We returned to the buses as the rain started to fall. We saw from the bus some of the remaining the old city walls. Our next stop was the courthouse where the Nuremberg trials were held. The Allies decided to have the trials here for security reasons. The courthouse is connected to the jail so the prisoners never had to be transported outside. The trials lasted from November 1945 until October 1946. The four judges were from the US, Great Britain, France and the Soviet Union. 24 Nazi leaders were tried for Major War crimes here. They all professed their innocence until Rudolph Hess took the stand and described in great detail his role in murdering over 1milion people at Auschwitz. In October 1946 12 Nazi leaders were sentenced to death and 3 were acquitted. The rest were given prison sentences.

We again retreated to the buses as it started to rain and proceeded to the Imperial Castle. The castle was first built in 1050 and its current form is from 1545. The emperors would only live here a few weeks a year. They traveled between their many castles all over the country during the year to rule their country. The most important function of this castle was for coronation of a new emperor. The royalty would come here to swear their allegiance to their new ruler.

The castle was built with some interesting defense mechanisms, but the castle was never attacked. It was, however, badly damaged in WWII and was rebuilt. The city was destroyed in the war, but most people survived because of the extensive beer cellars underground to which they retreated during the attack. Reconstruction of the city started in the 1950’s and was completed in 1970.

The rain had stopped as we toured the castle. We then proceeded to the old town square where we had time to look around, shop and have lunch. As it was Saturday, there were a lot of locals in the old square enjoying lunch, shopping at the produce stands and listening to the various musical groups. A stage was set up for a music concert to be held that evening. 

We walked around and did some shopping before returning to the bus. We left Nuremberg at 1:00pm and continued onto Prague.

Thank you my sister Sandi as I copied this from her blog.  She has a better memory than I do....she is six years younger.

We arrived in Prague at about 5:30.  We went to our hotel, the Hilton.  This is the hotel that US presidents stay in when they visit Prague.  It is beautiful and very modern.  After a quick shower we headed for the Kampa Park restaurant where we had reservations for dinner.  We walked across the famous Charles Bridge to the restaurant that is located at the foot of the bridge in a very famous park.  We had a wonderful table along the river.  Unfortunately, I had an allergic reaction to something and I felt slightly ill and could not eat my lovely dinner.  I did enjoy the company and the view.  Back to the hotel for a good night's sleep.