Salzburg to Nuremberg, cold through the mountains, a short ride of 304 km in 3:40 hrs with roadworks and trucks hogging one lane. The Germans are still checking cars at the border with Austria on the freeway causing long queues, I avoided this by using a back road to get into Germany and then onto the autobahn just past the blockage.

Nuremberg, it was the place chosen by the Nazi’s to hold huge rallies and it was completely destroyed during WWII. It has been restored to its pre-war state and has a very nice old town. This is also where the Nuremberg trials were held and Nazi war criminals executed.

Public transport consists of busses and trains and there is an app that you can use to buy tickets and find your way around, cost of a single ride is €2.75 and a day ticket is €8.30.

Today was Nazi history day, scary to say the least. First I visited the Zeppelin Field which is a huge area where Rallies with over half a million people where held. The grandstand complex is neglected and run down, part of it has been demolished but now there is a plan to conserve what’s left and make it safe for visitors. Currently there is a motor racing track in the middle of the field.

Next to the Documentation Centre (at the other end of the field) which attempts to explain the hysteria that engulfed the country during Hitler’s reign.

Quote from Wikipedia: “The permanent exhibition “Fascination and Terror” (Faszination und Gewalt) studies the causes, coherence, and consequences of National Socialism. It describes the Nazi Party Rallies and explains the fascination they exercised upon participants and visitors. At the same time, the exhibition endeavors to explain what led to the National Socialists’ criminal exercise of power and to reveal how the various causal factors were interrelated. A further goal is a frank presentation of the violent consequences that ensued for the population. The events that are inseparably linked with Nuremberg (“city of the party rally” — Stadt der Reichsparteitage) and the National Socialist period are also explained: the activities of Julius Streicher, editor of the anti-Semitic rabble-rousing weekly Der Stürmer (The Storm Trooper), the history of the Nuremberg Rally, the proclamation of the so-called Nuremberg Laws in 1935, the buildings of the Nazi party rally grounds and the trouble with Nazi architecture after 1945, and the criminal Nuremberg Trials against the chief executives of the National Socialist agenda in 1945-1946 and twelve succeeding trials. The exhibition concludes with an examination of the problem that has been with Germany since 1945: how Germans should deal with the legacy in stone left at the Party Rally Grounds by the National Socialists.”

Nuremberg Old Town – a good place to wander.