Historical Germany

History is a great influencer in what we do, in what we see. It is this history that draws you to new places ,good or bad.And we rely on history to make our choice.
This time we chose Nurnberg,Regensburg and Garmisch to explore in Germany before heading out to Italy.
Nuremberg has a baggage of being in the history books for all the wrong reasons but nevertheless there were some amazing historical things.
The castle was ok but the door was huuuge. I m sure it would have kept all the enemies at bay during its day.
A couple of cathedrals in the Alstadt was exquisite as ever and the cherry topping was the "Alstadt festival ".
The festival included the very many street shops , including a typical jatre shop which sells vegetable scraper to give different shapes to your vegetables.
Guess we are not very different after all !
It also had a German puppet theater but of course it was machine operated. German engineering-duh!
The show stoppers however were the all girls band " the night nurse" who enthralled the audience with some amazing performances!
The day ended in an Indian restaurant which of course meant over full bellies.

Next day, Regensburg!
It's the more prettier neighbor with a beautiful cathedral. The grandest I have seen so far. The walk along the bridge leads you to a place with buildings in bubblegum colors and somehow that beautifies the whole place. The perfect photo op!

From the man made beauties of the old towns we then headed towards a more natural setting, in the middle of the Altmuhl national park. Our destination was "Walting" and the nearest railway station was Eichstatt . This was a perfect mountain railway station with just 2 tracks, the thick pine forest facade on one side and the mountain on the other.
The road leading to walting ran parallel to the tracks and we were on our way in taxi but not before asking for help from the only other passenger to talk to the taxi agency in German to ask the taxi to come to the station.
The 15 odd miles of drive was truly blissful which ended in a quaint hotel , probably the only one in the region.
The next morning I woke up to the pine forest blanketed with mist and apples

fallen off the trees . The roads behind the hotel led into some camping sites and truly beautiful.
The region also happens to be close to the northern border of the ancient Roman Empire with some parts of their northern wall- the limas still intact.
It was a quick 20 min drive and time for a small history lesson.
The region also happens to be the finding site for fossils of the Archaeopteryx, so of course we went in search of dinosaurs ??
We did hammer on with the chisel in the hope of finding something significant but no such luck!
After a while of hammering and chiseling, I did find a sea lily and some water art on the limestone.
The next stop in Deutschland was Garmisch to see the Partnachklamm and what a beauty that was!
The distemper green water cutting across the rocks to form a gorge was "gorgeous " . The precarious walk alongside was an experience to be cherished for a long long time.

I think I m falling in love with another country and that is Germany. I miss saying " Danke " , I miss the Awesomeness of deuschebahn, the punctuality and the familiar sounding train announcements.