After a brief business trip in spring this year, I finally got the chance to actually see the city I stayed at for two days back then. This time our stay in Nürnberg took from Wednesday evening to Sunday evening. Why this specific interval? Well, unfortunately the direct flight from Cluj to Nürnberg is “too young” for now, so WizzAir is still ramping up the project I guess: they got to the huge number of two flights per week (I think it is quite easy to guess by now which days 😉 ).
So, there you have it: 3.5 days to be filled with things to do in Nürnberg. Well, actually 2.5: the main attraction of the trip was a wedding, so one day was taken for that of course. And, then, if you are in Bavaria there is another attraction in a nearby city, that for me was a must (but more about that in another post 😉 ). One can easily see by now, that “hour basket” shrunk quite a lot, so it was not that big a deal to fill it with activities 🙂 .
One thing ,that was constantly in Nürnberg, however, was our hotel, breakfast and dinner. So we had quite a lot of opportunity to check out this city from many angles. But first, let me start by pointing out a vital thing we needed to have, in order to get around easily (after all, it was me, my wife and my parents: moving around 4 people in the area had to be made easy somehow): the car. I decided to rent a car for this period, and the best price I could find was actually through rentalcars.com. I am not refraining to express my honest great opinion about this site: not only that they found a great deal which was cheaper than renting directly from the rental company, they offered me an even better deal and upgraded to a bigger car. Additionally, when I got off the plane and went to the desk, I got another offer: choose the basic Ford C-Max or get a 4×4. Naturally I chose the 4×4: a Nissan Qashqai. It was a very well equipped version with modern features like start/stop system and a sun-roof and… a surprisingly small trunk. This last thing just kept bugging me and even the very cool camera system, which helped park like in GTA 2, could not make me forgive this shortcoming. Additionally, on the Autobahn, sometimes I wished I was driving my 12yr old beemer instead…
The next great thing: the hotel. We chose Ibis (Hauptbahnhof) as the main base to start our daily expeditions from. It was a perfect location, great value for money (not counting the ridiculously high breakfast price) and they have the perfect underground garage. I already rated the hotel well on booking.com, but again: I would recommend it to anyone. They did one little strange thing, though: they blocked a random sum (well, for me it is random, because it is nowhere on the invoice) on my card on top of the room and parking price. They eventually charged the normal price, but after a week that strange sum is still blocked. I contacted the hotel via e-mail, but no response…
So, how to cope with the ridiculously high breakfast price (11€/person/day)? Just walk a few hundred meters every morning up on Koenigstrasse just in front of the hotel and it is easy to find the great solution. I will not place the name of the place, I am confident that people can identify it quickly ;)… The place offers a wide selection of delicious breakfast menus in the 3-4€ price range, so it is worth the short, refreshing walk every morning.
And for dinner? It is easy to find a wide range of local restaurants which serve local food. There is even a wide range of pizzerias, steakhouses offering all kinds of food for people who do not fancy the local food. The prices are varying, but it is easy to find dinner for around 20-25€ per person (including beer of course, after all, we were in Bavaria… 😉 ). Basically each evening we did a short walk in the historic center and chose a different restaurant for dinner… it was fun 🙂 .
There you have it: the basics were taken care of. What about sightseeing? I think I will need another post for that 😉
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