Wednesday June 12th

 This morning breakfast was the usual buffet type, and afterwards we set out for Nürnberg.  Actually, we walked to the train station and got there for 4 Euros!  Excellent!  We spent the day wandering around the town, visiting the Kaiserburg which unfortunately was closed inside due to major work being done on it.  However, we were able to walk around it and in some of the gardens, after which we came down the hill and I had ice cream.  It was an Italian place yet again (of course), and this time I chose Hazelnut (of course!), Amaretto and Cappucino.  It turned out to be a rather delightful selection of flavours.  Delicious!

We went on to the Natural History Museum, which seemed to be situated on the edge of Nürnberg, not on the outskirts, but certainly in the new part of the town on one of th main roads.  I was a little skeptical about it I have to admit, but it turned out to actually be a nice little Museum!  The only downside was the fact that there were no English translations of anything, but we only came across a couple of things which we didn't know what they obviously were.  There is a surprisingly and impressively large amount of Ethnographic collections in here, from Indonesia in particular, and from and area north of Japan on the Russian coastline which I have never even thought about that.  Add Costa Rica into the mix as well as a number of Pacific Islands and there is plenty to see here, many masks and many small and life size reconstructions of things from coastal fishing scenes to living quarters.  There really is an impressive collection of artefacts from places I have never really thought about before.

Upstairs there was the naturally history section, displays of minerals, geology and nature.  There is also what I would call a brief history of time which many archaeological items on display, a little like a whistle stop tour of the timeline in Germany.  They even have TWO bears in this museum.  Yes, TWO!

After leaving the Museum, we headed on back into town and gave in - we got a Starbucks Vanilla Cream and sat down to do a bit of people watching for a bit.  And to rest my aching feet in preparation for the next Museum of course!  It was roasting hot and we really weren't feeling that hungry, so we went on and discovered the Germanisches Museum, which again, seemed to be well away from the touristy area of the town.  This museum was HUGE....although we didn't visit everything in it, just select things.  We managed a not so brief history of time, and unfortunately the exhibition of Musical Instruments was closed - due to building work #thestoryofourlives but there were a handful of instruments which I personally reckon they had moved from that gallery up into the relevant areas for the duration of the work.  I had looked on the website before we had come on holiday which stated that this gallery was open, but obviously I should have looked it up more recently..!  Nevermind.

Afterwards, we had a look in the shop which was 40% postcards of exhibits, 40% books and 20% gifts.  Oh well!  We continued on back outside and made our way th rough the town towards the train station and stumbled upon a small market selling handmade items.  I felt rather optimistic at this point, but then as I looked around I realised that, although there were lots of nice things, nothing was really jumping out at me as a souvenir for anyone.  Oh and instead of the Schneeballs for my work colleagues, we decided on a couple of bags of Lebkuchen instead.  And one bag for us!  We will certainly be buying Schneeball balls again when we go back to Rothenburg......but they will mostly be for us! ;)


Back at the hotel, my feet felt like they were about to drop off.  We rested for a while before heading down to dinner whee I had fish and Mathew enjoyed the beef dish which I had the previous night, although he told me that it wasn't as salty or smokey as the one I'd had!