Fascade Nurnberg Cathedral

Heinrich visited the city of Nurnberg in southern Germany. It's an old city with a huge and impressive cathedral or Dom. Heinrich learned that a long time ago most of the people weren't able to read. So if they were going to learn about Bible stories the church leaders needed to find a different way to teach them. They had Bible stories carved into the walls of the church to teach about Jesus.

 

In the front of the cathedral over the door is a large and intricate set of carvings. There were lots of people and images carved into the stone.

The bottom two panels teach about the birth of Jesus. The first half show the shepherds in the bottom left, the wise men in the middle bringing gifts and an angel with the star of Bethlehem over Mary. Above them is Baby Jesus with his mother Mary on a bed.

 

 

On the bottom right shows Jesus being baptised in the Temple and his flight into Egypt with his mother Mary on a donkey. Above these two scenes are the images of Herod's men hurting the babies in Bethlehem.

The section above teaches about the death and Resurrection of Christ.

Along the bottom are the events leading to the crucifixion. From left to right is Christ appearing before Pilate, the beating of Jesus, the soldiers pressing the crown on his head and Jesus carrying his cross to Calvary.

In the middle is an image of Jesus being crucified.

 

On the right hand lower panel are the events after the crucifixion. The body of Jesus being taking down from the cross, The anointing and burial of Jesus and finally Christ rising out of the tomb with the soldiers sleeping around him.

The top portion of the panel shows the triumphant Christ during the Last Judgement. Under him are the scenes of the Good and Bad receiving their awards.

The first part of the Judgement is the raising of the Dead. You can see them coming out of the graves.

The Good are on the left hand of the scene (and the right hand of Christ). St Peter is preparing to lead them to Heaven. In the carving Peter is see holding the keys of Heaven.

On the other side is the image of the bad people being led down to Hell. You can see the mouth of Hell like a big gaping monster swallowing up the damned.

Sun Dial

Heinrich found a famous and huge tavern that was on a market Plaza in Rothenburg. It has a famous story about how the city was saved by a mayor who could drink 3 liters of beer in one drink. To celebrate the story the city has mechanical clock that opens up and shows a drinking statue. The statue appears in the window on the side of the big clock.

If you look closer you can see the main clock with the big golden hands. Above that is a different kind of clock. It shows what day of the month it is. And if you pay really close attention you can see a sundial at the very top of the pile.

Sundials are very common around Germany. Before clocks were popular the people relied on sundials to tell the time. They have them in lots of places. There was a big one in a vineyard that you could see from all across the valley.

Heinrich also found an old building with a really cool sundial on two sides of two corner walls. The stones were inlaid right into the brick wall. On one side is a round scroll with the numbers. On the other side is a long scroll with two kinds of numbers to tell the time.

 

Spital

Heinrich discovered an interesting old building in Nurnberg. It was a medieval building that was built over the river. It actually stands on two arches that form a little bridge for the water to flow under.

There was a carved wood sign on the side of the building that tells about the hospital being built between 1332 and 1339 with a pharmacy added in 1486.

 

The hospital has been around for a long time. And even though its been renovated several times, the apotheke (pharmacy) has been there since 1486.

 

These buildings teach how languages can come together and stray apart. A long time ago English and German were very closely related. Back then "Spital" was a place to care for sick people. The German word for house is "Haus". So these buildings were called Haus Spital. When the two languages separated English kept the combination and called a place for sick people "hospital". In German they dropped the Spital and they just call it "haus" or "Krackenhaus" (sick house). It was interesting to see how languages changed over time.

Shopping at Nurnberg

Shopping has been an interesting experience for Heinrich. Some of the things he has learned come from a long time ago. When he was in Rothenburg he found the old City Hall. On the wall next to the entrance gate are the official measuring rods. This included an iron rod that was the official one foot, the cubit (from elbow to finger length) and a rod (an important old measure for property).

 

Heinrich also found some stores that only have one kind of product. He found a fancy store that specializes in Christmas decorations. There were lots of really cool ornaments and German Christmas items. It was like a German Frankenmuth.

 

Heinrich also learned that there are some places that have very expensive and very fancy stores. In Nurnberg the fancy shopping street is Kaiserstrasse. That means the Emperor's Street and supposedly the Emperor (or Kaiser) used to shop on this street.

 

 

Heinrich was very confused when he got to Kaiserstrasse. For being such a famous and important shopping district there was almost no one there. That's when Heinrich learned that most German stores do not open on Sundays and he was visiting on a Sunday. That's why there was no one there on the day Heinrich visited.

 

Rothenburg Gate

Heinrich inspected the city gates of Rothenburg that are still very impressive. The initial guardhouse protected an entrance area where attacking enemies could be trapped. They are now little visitor centers and a small museum.

Over the gate was a huge tower that could see for a long ways around the city. It was impossible for an enemy army to sneak up on the city.

Near the top of the tower are the city's emblem, the red castle. That was like a rebus for Rothenburg. Since the name means the "red castle" a picture of a red castle was the city's symbol.

Over the inner section of the gate is a face carved into the wall. If you look close you can see the black marks under the face. The hole of the mouth extends all the way into the tower and was a place where hot oil could be poured on attacking troops, or as the tour book said, "boiling Nutella".

Under this section of the city wall is the old thick city gate. Every night this gate door was locked tight so that the city would be safe. But if a farmer or trader was late coming home, he could still get in. For a little bribe to the night guard, there was a much smaller door in the gate door that could be opened. It was big enough to let an unarmed man wiggle through but a knight in armor could never fit through the little opening. People must have been smaller back then, cause a lot of people now could never squeeze through such a small opening.

Nurenburg

There are lots of famous cities and interesting places to see in Germany. Heinrich has had a really fun time travelling around and seeing some of these cities. One of the cities is named Nurnberg or as Americans often say it, Nuremberg. As he started his walk around the city, Heinrich found a beautiful old mosaic map of the city.

 

The entrance through the city goes under a huge tunnel gate with a big tower that looks over the passage.

If you look all the way up to the top you can see a double-headed eagle plaque. That was the symbol of the Emperor. It is important because the Emperor's palace is just around the corner and Nurnburg was one of the four Imperial cities that were very important for the way the Emperor ruled Germany.

 

Inside the city Heinrich saw one of the four main corner towers of the old city wall. It was made round in the days of cannons so that the cannon balls would be more likely to bounce away from its sides.

 

On one of the market platz Heinrich found one of the oldest houses in the city. It's more than 800 years old and was built like a fortress. Originally there were no doors on the ground level. The doors were up a floor or two and could only be accessed by ladders that the family inside would let down to allow people to come.

Heinrich had a great lunch at a doner shop. He decided to have Mediterrane reis Pfanne mit putenfleisch, which means Mediterranean rice with thin sliced smoke meat. It was delicious.

The last thing Heinrich saw in the afternoon before heading for home was the old Zeppelin Field. A long time ago this was a place where Nazis had big meetings. Now it's just a broken down field with old cement stands and lots of weeds.

 

Munich

Heinrich went for a visit to see Munich. It is a nice city and the capitol of Bavaria. Through the middle of the city is the Isar River.

 

There are several bridges across the river and Heinrich really liked this one. It was an old bridge that led across to a huge monument with a tall tower on top of it.

At the entrance to the bridge are two statues. One is a herdsman with animals. He is named Bayern, which is the German name for Bavaria. Bavaria is a state in the southern part of Germany.

The other side of the road has a lady statue named Pfalz, which is another state in Germany. She is shown as a gardener with lots of grapes.

Since it is a pretty big river, just behind the lady statue is a life preserver ring. If someone fell in the river you could throw them the ring to keep them afloat until help can come.

There was one more cool fountain just across the street. It was a family of mermaids (guess it would be merpeople). There was a dad and a mom and a baby and they all had merpeople tails.