Hello again, Blogonauts!
On Sunday you would have found me enjoying the rebuilt remnants of the Holy Roman Empire and the Reformation, alongside a few thousand Nürnberger pedestrians who flocked to the Altstadt to eat ice cream and drink beer...blessedly, not together.
Nürnberg was beloved by many Holy Roman Emperors, but by none more than Charles IV. The Kaiserburg (Emperor's Castle) pre-dates him by a couple of centuries, but it looms large over the city center he helped to create. Under his direction the Jewish ghetto was cleared, and its inhabitants killed or expelled, to make way for the current city's preeminent public market, the Hauptmarkt. Along its edges sits the Frauenkirche, or Church of Our Lady, which Charles ordered built atop the destroyed synagogue.
Initially I felt aghast reading that history while seeing all the joyous hubbub in the square. But then I realized Americans have as much displacement and oppression in our history. It's reasonable, I suppose, to celebrate the living, all the while remembering the dead.
But not surprisingly, destruction didn't stop with the end of the Holy Roman Empire. Nürnberg was badly bombed in World War II, particularly in the latter part of the conflict. Almost all of the buildings in the Altstadt had to be rebuilt...some as close to the original as possible, but others in a more modern style. (For photos I took, click on the "Photos" tab above and see the album tagged for April 7.)
My day rounded out with a performance of Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte," at the Staatstheater. I loved the music, but the misogynistic plot left me cringing for hours afterward.
Fortunately, Nürnberg has turned itself into a Human Rights center. More on that later.
Enjoy the pictures; I'll blog to you later!