PWA: Because 116 pages is just too many.

Awfully quiet here.

I came to Nurnberg Germany on an impulse a couple of days ago. I am going back to Poland on Sunday. Nurnberg has the oldest and best Christmas market in Germany. It is also a beautiful city, my favorite city in Germany. I would post some photos here but since Woot won’t allow me to upload them directly and Photobucket is not allowing photos to be hot linked anymore, if you want to see them go to my Facebook page. Try this link: Facebook

I think anyone can see it, you don’t need to have a FB account.

Merry Christmas!

the link didn’t work for me (but when I login to facebook and go to your page, the link matches what I see. go figure)

anyway, hope you don’t mind, but I pulled two of your photos and uploaded them to imgur. the photos were great, and the market looks amazing!!

WOW! Beautiful!

Heck yeah! It’s crazy out there today!

we took a freezing cold beach walk. coming home, between school traffic and holiday shoppers, it took us close to an hour for what should have been less than 30 min. UGH

Glad Mbspell posted the pictures. Beautiful. I wonder how many days you could spend walking through the market.

Actually those photos were from an earlier post before I went on my trip. I took them from the internet. My photos are in a post from yesterday. But the photos from the internet do capture the market well. I signed up at Imgur, here are some of my photos of the market and the city.

Poof, I imagine you could spend a lot of time there. As you can see the market is quite large and there is also a separate market just for the kids. Many of the streets leading to the market are also lined with stalls selling food and other items.

The market is literally in the center of the city which is an area surrounded by a wall,almost 4 miles in circumference, going back to the 11th century which protected the city. The area is called the ‘Altstadt’ which means the ‘old city’. Nurnberg was a major trading city, the main east-west and north-south trade routes went through the city, and Nurnberg was a very wealthy city. Nurnber is very close to the geographic center of Europe. Many of the homes of the wealthy merchants are preserved in the Altstadt. One of the finest ones is now the city museum. The Holy Roman Empire didn’t have a permanent capitol, the Emperor, the most famous one was Charlemagne, would travel around the empire and hold court for several months in selected cities. Nurnberg was one of them, the imperial castle is on the Northwest corner of the city on a hill overlooking the city. It is quite large and one of the only castles in Europe that was never conquered by an enemy. Having an imperial castle gave Nurnberg a lot of prestige and attracted many powerful people.

Of course the modern city has spread far beyond the wall. The population of the city is around 500,000 people. Because of the historical connection to the Holy Roman Empire, Hitler made Nurnberg the spiritual capitol of the Third Reich and Berlin the political capitol. The N*** Party rallies were held in Nurnberg every year at a large area in the Southeast corner of the city. Some of it is still there including a large stadium which you have probably seen from films of that period.

Now the area is used for the annual festivals (Volksfest) in the spring and fall, similar to the Oktoberfest in Munich. Another, building there, the Coliseum, which wasn’t finished, was to house what would have been the world Parliament building after Hitler had conquered Europe. It now contains the Dokumentationzentrum which houses many documents from the Third Reich and is open to the public.

(As you might notice, I love the city and I love history. I first lived in Nurnberg for almost 2 years in the mid '70s as a young soldier, and I returned in 1999 and lived a bit north of the city for 2 more years. Since I moved away, first to Heidelberg for 7 years and now Poland for the last 9 years, I go back to visit as often as I can. Rome, Tokyo and Nurnberg are my 3 favorite cities in he world. My mother was born and raised in Rome, I still have family there, and I lived just outside of Tokyo for 3 1/2 years.)

Everything sounds wonderful. I really don’t think you’re seriously considering returning to PA, at least not yet. Maybe when you’re older. Right now as many visits with the grandkids as you can afford, and surely Mom and Dad could bring them over occasionally when they’re a little older.

MERRY CHRISTMAS,EDLADA, AND NO.1, WHEREVER YOU ARE.

Merry Christmas to you too, Poof and everyone! Hope you all get what you want for Christmas.

That is exactly my plan. I intend to go every year for a month or 2. Preferably when it is warm. I am not a fan of winter anymore and flying that time of year is never certain. I have already promised my daughter that when the kids are older we will go to Disneyland and go on a cruise. I am not a fan of either but I have to spoil my grandkids, right?

Thanks Poof. Merry Christmas everybody!

Absolutely, just don’t wait too many years.

I have very fond memories of Disney World with my grandparents, and I know my kids have them as well. and the kids loved the cruises, too.

merry christmas!

Well I need to wait until the little ones are old enough to remember it. When I was 7 years old we crossed the Atlantic and back on a ship, to Italy to see my mother’s family. It was an incredible experience to see a foreign country and travel on a ship. I remember it well to this day and I think it was a big influence on my life. I realized at an early age that there is a big beautiful world out there. I want my grandchildren to have the same experience.

Amazingly enough, I was in a coffee shop in Potsdam, near Berlin, with a friend before Christmas an there on the wall was a painting of the SS United States, the ship we returned from Europe on. And it was for sale! So I bought it.

Good move.

Going through our 8mm movies last week, found one with us at Disneyland in 1963. I’d forgotten about that trip! I was only 9yo.

Ed, check the weather channel. It’s unbelievable what Erie got and is going to get. I didn’t know Erie is one of the snowiest cities in the country.

Holy cow! Was just reading on that and looking at pics!