Nuremburg

You've heard of the Nuremburg Trials after World War II. It was the capital city for the Nazi party's rallies and the seat where anti-Semitic laws were created. Ironically, it is also where 24 of Hitler's officers faced a trial for their contribution of war crimes. Out of those 24 eleven were hanged on October 16, 1946. One man was acquitted. The rest were imprisoned for a range of years.
Nuremburg's history began before the Third Reich. Our purpose in going to Nuremburg was to visit the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. The museum is home to the largest collection of art and antiquities in all of Germany. Like most German buildings it was pristinely clean. We walked across carpetless floors to gaze into display cases of artifacts. We had our own audio tour and listened to the information that was interesting to us. The most intriguing pre-historic artifact was the Gold Cone of Ezelsdorf-Buch. It was made from one piece of pure gold with a mass of 310 grams. Small rings are etched into the gold, circling the cone from base to tip. It is believed that this is an early form of calendar calculations. It was found by a bricklayer who threw the pieces aside nonchalantly. His clever wife took the pieces to her dentist who had it assayed and found it to be pure gold. Apparently priests used to wear it in ceremonial rituals. It's probably about three feet tall.

This is the oldest globe in the world, made by cartographer Martin Behaim. He used calculations from previous explorers and inscripted the globe with these calculations.

My favorite part of the museum was the music room. The largest collection of piano-fortes was displayed there. Some of the most beautiful and intricately crafted instruments stood for us to see. It was desperately hard for me to walk by an uncovered piano-forte and not touch it. The denseness of the silence would've had a sharp interruption and I'm certain that all kinds of security would've come down on me had I dared to press one key. What a story that would've made!
It is a general consensus that we will all return to Nuremburg when the weather gets better. It wasn't a very good day to be walking around. We were also pressed for time because we had to get back for dinner. Next time we will see more of this great historic city. I will also include more of my own photos.
The poor barista who made this latte machiatto really didn't understand English very well and my three lessons of German did not aide me at all. The most important concept - that of the need for soy milk - was successfully conveyed. The concept of only one latte machiatto - with espresso - was not. Thankfully, Heather is very good at "sign language" and I only received one and only had to pay 2,50 euros instead of 5 euros. It was delicious.