When I was here on Xmas eve and Xmas, everything was closed. Today was my day to see the inside of what I only saw from the outside earlier in the week. First destination -- the Nazi Party Rally Grounds/Reichsparteitagsgelände.
Let me say that German is funny. If a group of words describes some one thing, they jam the words into one word. So these are four words jammed into one. In English, we say twenty two. Germans say twoandtwenty, or zweiundzwanzig. If someone was a tall guy who sold hot dogs and had long hair he could be tallguysellshotdogslonghair. But in German.
The grounds were over a mile from my hotel but since I never take public transit on these trips, I hoofed it. Which was interesting bc i got to see a regular neighborhood instead of the old town. Just building after building of long four story buildings. No houses. Small yards, if any. Euros love America bc we have so much space. All these people grow up in apartments.
When I left the hotel it was sunny and not too cold. 45 minutes later when I walked up on the grounds it was overcast, windy, and it started to drizzle. Oy. But luckily that only lasted like 5 mins. As I walked into the first structure I came to, I was amazed. The Zeppelinfeld. This was meant to hold 250k people and could fit more than 12 football fields inside of it. Here's a picture of the grandstand, that is over 1,200 feet long. I stood in the spot where Hitler and his cronies would stand and give speeches. It's hard to get an idea of how big this place is but listen to me when I tell you it's big.
But it is hardly maintained. There is graffiti up on the rostrum. I didn't see one employee of the city or site anywhere. It's a shame. This place is cool and could be displayed much better.
After checking out the zeppelin field, I walked around the pond in the middle of the grounds. There are docks and yacht clubs all around the edge of the pond. One problem - the water stops about 40 feet from the docks. Not even close. I wonder if the water is higher in the summer after it fills up w snow run off? So I walked around the pond to the great street. Another freakishly large site. It's 130 feet wide and 1.25 miles long.
Just past this street is the Congress Hall which is now a museum. Hitler wanted to build this place to house 400,000 people for rallies. It was modeled after the colloseum in Rome except much bigger. It was never completed as the war started in 1939 and there were better things for soldiers to do than build a huge arena. Here it is!
The museum does a good job of laying out the whole nazi regime, form the early 30s until they lost the war. There is some mention concentration camps, mostly in discussion of where all the granite came from that was used to build the structures on the rally grounds. But only one placard on the holocaust. It's kind of downplayed but I guess this isn't the place for that. This was only a discussion of these grounds and how it was built. At the end was a good area in the nuremberg trials. All these guys that were a part of the nazi regime, that had come to Nuremberg to celebrate the party, came back here to be tried and, if found guilty, executed or incarcerated. .
I really enjoyed this place. Totally unexpected and just over the top huge. The idea of a megalomaniac left me awestruck.
I had one more sight to see - the castle. I had been there several times earlier this week but only wandered the grounds, the interior was closed. I got back into town about 245 and went back to the same italian place as the night before. This time I had pasta and was back on the road by 330. Got to the ticket desk of the castle at 345. Ut oh, no longer selling tickets bc they close at 4. What the what? I took this picture of the castle before heading to my train (there's a picture of me in front of this castle but because the sun never gets more than 2 inches above the horizon I am in the shadows).
Well, my train to Frankfurt left at 6 so i had some time to kill. I wandered back along the old city wall, weaves my way across the river a few times and got back to my hotel. Had a beer, charged my phone, and went to the train station. Hopped on my empty train and headed for Frankfurt.
Vacation over. 7 full days. Over that fast. Thank you for having me again, Europe. I hope to see you soon, this time in warm weather. I think these cities would be so different if all the restaurants had their tables and biergartens set up. Would be more lively.
Shelby out!
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