Weeks 16 and 17: Nuremburg, Playmobil FunPark and Annie's visit!

On our final overnight trip, we picked the girls up from school and drove 2 hours north to Nuremberg. This was the trip the girls were most looking forward to because… we spent the night in a castle!  

Nuremberg was one of the most powerful imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire and the Kaiserberg Castle (where we stayed) was the main political center. It was built in 1039 (!) and looks like it came straight out of Game of Thrones. In fact, I read that this castle served as inspiration for the Stark residence in Season 1. 

We stayed at the Jugenherberge Hostel, a family hostel built into a part of the castle not available to the public. Our room was in one of the Castle towers and was very comfortable despite it being a hostel. 

The “Sandsteinfelsen”  next to the castle is apparently famous in its own right, but served as an excellent climbing location for the girls (and plenty of other kids, so I assume it was allowed).  

We poked around the castle quarters and enjoyed the amazing view of Nuremberg before grabbing dinner at a nearby biergarten.  

Hadley loves Nuremberg sausages (tiny white sausages) so we had to order her some while actually in Nuremberg. 

I took a walk early Saturday morning to see the square, home of the most famous Christmas market in the world, and get a feel for the town. I would love to come back here one day for more exploration, including the Nuremberg Palace of Justice where the post-war Nazi trials took place. 

The only thing that could possibly top spending the night in a real castle was spending the following day at the Playmobil Funpark. My kids, especially Eden, LOVE Playmobil. They get a Playmobil advent calendar every year and we recently had to redesign Eden’s room to include a piece of furniture for storing all her Playmobil sets. When we originally told the girls about the move to Germany, we certainly used the phrase “home of Playmobil” as a major source of hype.  

Playmobil Funpark was the perfect amusement park for us because there are NO rides (and thus, no lines). Instead, the park is comprised of several different play areas modeled after the various themes of Playmobil toys.  

There was a knight’s castle....

A farm with horses and cows you could "care" for...

A gold mining town...

A HUGE pirate ship...

a mermaid cove, dinosaur treehouse, unicorn land, police station, and a TON more. It’s like the most incredible playground you could ever imagine. Several of the play areas had water features, which were perfect for a hot day. 

After a lengthy visit to the gift shop, where there was literally EVERY current set of Playmobil at half the price we’d pay in the US, we headed to an indoor atrium filled with Playmobil sets for the girls to play and the parents to relax.  Mid playing, Eden declared it the best day of her life (a phrase she’s uttered more than once on this trip!).  

The next day Eden had her last playdate with her special German friend, Emma. They swam in the Eisbach River in the English garden and got ice cream at the Hirschau Biergarten. Eden sure will miss her little buddy!  

After a rainy week finishing up my Germany work tasks, we had our final visitor…Annie! Annie is one of my best friends who used to work at Western with me, but now lives in Boston. It’s always special to see her, but even moreso in Munich. She stayed with us for four nights and we were able to do a lot of exploring together.   

The weather was awful almost her entire trip, but we made the most of it. One hilarious (in retrospect) highlight was getting caught in a thunderstorm at the Seehaus Biergarten. Every time we wanted to buy something we had to walk with one of the girls (who wouldn’t relinquish the 2 umbrellas we had) to the checkout. Look at how much of a trooper Annie is! 

On Sunday morning we beat the crowds and visited the Munich Residenz right when it opened. It was HUGE, beautiful, awe-inspiring, etc, but the best part of all was that we were some of the only people there. We kept finding ourselves in these incredible rooms all by ourselves. I bet very few people are able to take pictures at the Residenz with no other people in the background! By the time we left, the lines to get in were getting long.  

We walked over to the Marienplatz to catch the Glockenspiel “show” before heading over to the Hofgarten and Eisbachwelle in the Englishgarten. 

The rest of Annie's visit was full of exploring, shopping, and eating and drinking together, which is what we do best. We were all sad to see her go!  

We’re now in the midst of packing and getting ready to return to the US. I’ll write one final blog post with some reflections about our adventure, so stay tuned!