Germany by rail. Destination #10 - Nuremburg
Nuremburg
Location of photos.
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1. About an hour after departing Munich, we arrived in Nurembug.
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2. Once again, after we dropped our things off at our hotel, we explored the old center of town and ate lunch in the plaza. I took an extra-big photo of it for you to enjoy!
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3. This was more of the area. That was our hotel, on the right.
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4. After a while the sun began to peek out.
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5. There was some construction going on northeast of the town center.
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6. We then rented a car and started driving around. The sun was out fully now, and throngs of people were crowding a public swimming pool and the neighboring river.
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7. There was a generous supply of Schrebergarten throughout the city.
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8. Some modern stuff.
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9.And more Schrebergarten. There was easily more here than in any city we'd been to yet.
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10. We passed through a residential area.
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11. But it was getting late, so we headed back toward the center of town. We had dinner at our hotel, watched a football game on TV and called it a night.
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12. The next morning we got up and headed to the northwest. We passed some newer apartments that we really . . . orange.
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13. There were farms - including lots of greenhouses - right near the city.
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14. And an IKEA!!! 
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15. We passed some more residential areas abutting an industrial park.
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16. And after we drove some more, we encountered the first of several quaint outlying towns.
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17. Another one. We ate lunch here.I felt at home in my lederhosen. 
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18. After we finished lunch, we headed east and passed another industrial area.
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19. And encountered yet another quaint little town.
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20. Yet another one was located to the north of the previous one.
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21. And to the north of that was yet another one.
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22. We got back on the highway and passed yet another industrial area.
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23. And when we got off the freeway we passed through still another cute town. I was almost starting to get bored of them!
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24. We got back on the freeway again and encountrered some construction.
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25. And then came to still another quaint little town. Yawn.
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26. We began to head north toward the city of Erlangen, which is to Nuremburg something like what Tacoma is to Seattle. We passed another commercial/industrial area. By now I was almost welcoming these drab landscapes, it was a way to remind me that I wasn't in some fairy tale land!
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27. The highrise apartment blocks were similarly a welcome sign that not all was fairy-tale land here.
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28. And office parks like this, too.
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29. Finally we arrived in Erlangen. The center of town was mostly - surprise! - a quaint fairy-tale place. But a big construction site and a giant smokestack from a power plant gave it some welcome humility.
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30. There was a large park in the center of town which was surrounded by fantastic old buildings.
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31. We headed east in search of still more quaintness and found this place. Franz had to take a piss really bad, so we got out of the car and he pissed in the fields!
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32. We decided not to head too far east and turned back west. We drove through this exclusive neighborhood.
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33. We crossed over the river and saw some sheep in a field.
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34. A short while later, a large highrise dominated a suburban town.
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35. More suburbs.
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36. And some brand-spanking-new stuff.
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37. It was late in the afternoon and we decided to head back south toward Nuremburg proper. On the way we hit yet another quaint town with yet another little waterfall. We ate dinner here and called it a day.
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38. The next day we headed toward some of Nuremburg's western suburbs. Here was a town along a river.
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39. And here we saw something I had wanted to see at the outset of my trip: An amazing engineering feat - a waterway "bridge" passing over a road! A small solar farm was located on a hill next to it.
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40. After seeing the bridge, we began to follow the path of the waterway - which was actually a man-made canal - and passed by a large factory. A part of it had solar panels on the roof.
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41. Farther west was yet another quaint town, where we had brunch.
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42. Afterwards we headed back east.
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43. Passed over a stream.
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44. And got to the town of Furth. More quaintness.
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45. To the south there was some old and new mixed together.
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46. And nearby, a large industrial area. Beautiful!
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47. There were some Schrebergarten right next to the industrial area.
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48. And there were even some Schrebergarten next to the alien pyramid!
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49. Almost right in the middle of the urbanized area were some fields.
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50. More of the industrial area.
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51. And some residential near the industrial area.
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52. There were some older industrial buildings which were still in use - sort of.
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53. But Hans and Franz got tired of my fixation on industrial architecture and other mundane things, so we headed toward the center of town again. This was south of where we were after we first got here.
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54. But I was driving and managed to sneak in another industrial fix!
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55. Schrebergarten could be found just about anywhere. Also in this part of town was a relative rarity in the cities we'd been to so far: Sizeable expanses of underutilized land.
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56. We passed by the sports complex.
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57. And more Schrebergarten. Speaking of sports, the face of a football player donned the side of a highrise.
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58. It was starting to get late but we decided to drive around just a little more. We passed through some more residential areas abutting some industry.
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59. As well as a 60's-era development. Brave New World!
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60. Once we saw this we decided it was time to head back to the center of town and eat dinner. Once again we merely ate at our hotel.
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61. We got up early the next morning and checked out of our hotel. We had originally planned to catch the train to Bamberg first thing in the morning but decided to drive by just a few more areas first. We had breakfast at a cafe here, east of downtown.
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62. And we continued east, paralleling a river.
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63. We stopped our eastward progression once we hit a mall.
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64. On the way back toward the center of town we passed through still more fancy neighborhoods.
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65. We were talking about the waterway we had seen yesterday and I begged Hans and Franz to let me see the port. So we drove a ways southward, here it was.
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66. Nearby was an average suburban town.
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67. And another Modernism-era development.
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68. More suburbs.
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69. And still more.
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70. To the northwest of that was, finally, a quaint little town. We had lunch here.
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71. At this point we decided we would catch a much later train to Bamberg than we originally planned. It was overdue to turn in our rental car too, but oh well.
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72. The other day we had briefly passed by an agricultural area between Nuremburg and Erlangen. We decided to investigate more of it. There were quite a lot of greenhouses!
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73. And more farms.
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74. And still more farms.
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75. And more greenhouses around another cute town!
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Well OK, it was fairly late in the afternoon. We turned in our rental car and headed to the train station. And now on to Bamberg!
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