The Environs of Nuremberg
by William Cracraft
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If getting off the beaten track appeals to you, there are three easy ways to see the Nuremberg environs: underground, bike and car.
U-Bahn
The Unterbahn, or subway, has four entrances in downtown Nuremberg, the route
map is clear and color coded and Fürth is only 15 minutes away. Costs about
$3 round trip, impossible to screw up, much different feel than Nuremberg.
Fürth was once presented to the Bishop of Bamberg by the Holy Roman Emperor Heinrich II in 1007, but townspeople take pride that for centuries, Jews, at best tolerated in other parts of Europe, were treated with equality in Fürth. Jews were not restricted to a neighborhood and had voting representatives in the town’s administration. Jews founded many of the town’s health and social institutions, installed fountains and donated heavily to build the beautiful neo-Classical Fürth Theatre.
Jewish presence was drastically curtailed by law in the 1830s and virtually ended under the National Socialist fervor of the 1930s. Of the approximately 2000 Jews in Fürth in 1933, 1500 were allowed to emigrate, but 500 were killed. One of the immigrants to the United States was Fürth native Henry Kissinger, later U.S. Secretary of State.
The town was untouched by World War Two bombing which racked Nuremberg, so has streets lined with beautiful old buildings and plazas set with unique ancient and modern fountains. Three English-language tour maps are available, including a great walking tour past an assortment of carved stone buildings, lush parks and running fountains.
It is an easy day’s stroll around the business district, city park and neighborhoods. The city park has a great little café serving simple, hearty meals and where a cup of tea rents a table for the afternoon.
Bike
If you don’t mind a little exercise, an afternoon bike trip is a great, inexpensive
way to see the countryside. Drivers are relatively quite courteous, stoplights
feature “bike lights” along side pedestrian signs, and there are many miles
of bike paths running through town and country.
Summertime in Germany is like the United States’ Midwest. It can be sunny and warm, muggy, overcast or rainy, but rain comes in showers and bridges and tree canopies are common. Bring apples.
A half hour easy pedaling from Nuremberg will bring you to tiny Kraftshof, home of St. George’s Church. The Kraftshof main street smacks of country life, running past gardens overrun with summer blossoms, yards filled with farm equipment and a restaurant and a café. The little town is surrounded by tilled fields, workers a distant speck alongside their tractors.
The main road doglegs through the middle of town and at that bend stands a gate to history. St. George’s Church (St. Georgskirche) has withstood the ravages of time, battle, religious reformation, fire and occupation. It is a symphony in stone, a testament to God, war, endurance and death.
The church itself is a nearly a museum and includes a 1490 altar featuring St. George and the Dragon. Dedicated in 1315, the churchyard has an eight-foot wall and five stubby fortified towers. A family called Kress has maintained the church since 1438 and the churchyard is the family’s private burial ground.
Of the many Kress memorials in the yard, the largest features the family crest, including a crowned head clenching a sword in its teeth, above a sarcophagus listing a nine males killed during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, and World Wars I and II. The church was bombed in 1943 during World War II, but has been completely restored by the Kress Endowment of New York and is in use today as a place of worship.
If churches make you hungry (or thirsty), there are two restaurants a rod or two from the church gate. Left is the pricey-but-worth-it Schwarzer Adler(Black Eagle), right, the solid fare of Alte Post(Old Post Office). If you want food on the fly, beware. Bakeries and meat shops (Bäkerei und Metzger), often close at lunch, so buy early or eat late.
From Kraftshof, twenty minutes’ pedaling takes riders to Chateau Neunhof, a square, latticed five-story summer home built by a patrician family from Nuremberg. Notable features include a moat with a neatly trimmed lawn at the bottom and a flying watercloset hanging 40 feet above said moat.
The chateau, owned by the German National Museum, is open summer weekends, but the gardens alone are worth a weekday visit. Neatly laid out and coordinated flower beds broken by squares of grass and gravel walkways are peopled by troll-like statues. Looked real nice, kind of quiet, with just a couple of grandma’s with strollers for company.
Auto
Beyond leg power, and if you don’t mind the expense of a car, Germany is quite
nice for motoring. Driving is on the correct side, most drivers are courteous
and there are nice spots within an hour’s drive of Nuremberg.
The countryside around Nuremberg, typically Bavarian, is verdant, rolling farmland dotted with villages, each with some unique trait. Fifty minutes north-west of Nuremberg is Würgau, home of Hartmann’s, a family-owned 450-year-old microbrewery, restaurant and inn, where the owner, descended from the founders, visits every table at dinner.
In this establishment, the food, full-flavored and plentiful, accompanies the award-winning Edelpils and Felsentrunk beers. With it’s nine bedrooms, Hartmann’s covers food, drink and sleep, or essen, trinken und schlafen. Truly a free-standing vacation spot.
Beyond food and drink, romance abounds in Bavaria. There is a real bishop’s palace called Seehof, near Bamberg. Perched at the top of a low hill, the imposing building is something between a palace and a castle. It was built by the prince-bishop Marquard Schenk von Stauffenberg in 1690.
Instead of protecting a bishop and providing a sumptuous setting for his summer hunts, the great stone building now houses the museum offices for protection of regional monuments and hosts classical concerts in the summer. Worth-the-visit item: an exceptionally large and ornate fountain running down a hillside featuring several life-sized figures.
Another nearby is called Greifenstein, built in 1172 and a von Stauffenberg possession since 1690 (another von Stauffenberg made history 250 years later when, having lost an eye and an arm in battle, he placed a bomb that very nearly killed Hitler on July 20, 1944). This rocky bulldog on a peak is a personal-size building. Used as a family residence, it could be defended by a score of men. Word is it houses a great collection of furniture and armor from various centuries, but what didn’t get passed on is the castle is closed between noon and 3 p.m., so plan accordingly. There is an adjacent restaurant, but its quality is unknown.
Fans of Wagner know his home is Bayreuth, about 70 minutes from Nuremberg by auto. Visits to the town are easy, but it is almost impossible to get tickets for the opera festival unless you make reservations years in advance. Besides, as one Bavarian put it, “For a lot of money you are allowed to suffer on hard wooden seats without pillows.”
From drunken troll statues to fortified churches to courtyards overgrown with flowers, Nuremberg countryside offers myriad sights for day trips and evening junkets. The Germans really know how to cook, they take great pride in their beer, appreciate good manners and the dollar is still strong.
