Travel Blog: Nürnberg and the 'Pencil Castle'

This morning's pre-arrival lecture was about the Main-Danube Canal, it's history, use and engineering.

The engineering aspect was really interesting to hear about, as it incorporates a unique water-saving method that was adopted when the new larger Panama Canal was built recently.

A canal linking some tributaries of the Main and Danube was actually proposed by Charlemagne in 793. It seems it was at least partially constructed, by archaeological evidence. The larger canal was built in the mid-1800s by King Ludwig I, linking Bamberg and Kelheim. It was completed, but with the advent of the railway and the volatility of the water levels in the dry season, it soon became uneconomical to run. The canal was abandoned after WWII and damage done was not repaired.

It wasn't until the 1960s that construction began again to finish the route, with the final section, going through the ecologically sensitive Altmühl Valley, not completed until 1992. A lot of the financing for the project came from hydro-electric power generation revenue at the locks, and a good chunk of money was put into environmental protection projects.

There's very little commercial traffic other than passenger riverboats on the canal, but we have found it to be a very serene and relaxed journey so far.

This is the water-saving system of storage chambers.
No pumps are used, just gravity and physics. Each chamber is opened
individually, the water between the lock and the chamber finds its
natural level, and then the next is opened. 60% of the
water can be reused.

The lock gates open vertically. Very, very
low - and wet - bridge.

Zeppelin Field in Nürnberg, where the Nazi
rallies were held.

Courtroom 600 in the Nürnberg Courthouse, where
The Nazi War Crimes Trials were held.

After the historic part of the tour, we were taken to the Faber-Castell Castle. This is the original home of the Faber family, the second generation of which, in the1850s, developed the world's best pencil. Mr. Faber made them each by hand at that time, and his wife went to the market in Nürnberg to sell them. It was his son who mechanized the process and began selling internationally. When they ran out of sons to carry on the business, daughter Otillia married into the Castell family, and they have been Faber-Castell since that time. The single factory is still within walking distance of the castle, and the current generation still runs the company.

The castle itself was taken over by the Nazis at the beginning of the war In 1939 when the family was away for the summer. After that, the American Army used it as a headquarters building, and then finally it became a press corps residence during the war trials. The family hasn't lived there since, and it is the current Duke who is leading the restoration. Some of the inside rooms are beautifully decorated with Carrera Marble and Art Deco style ceilings and wood inlays in the wall panelling.

After the tour, we were offered a wine tasting from the family's own vineyard. The wines I tried were very nice....And each of us got a 'Perfect Pencil', with eraser, extender (so you can use the pencil until there's nothing left to hold) and even a sharpener integrated together. I happened to see one in a shop window in another town, and they were selling for 11 Euros! Too bad we visited on a Sunday; the shop was closed.

I think I was the only person to recognize this as
a pencil sharpener. Somebody in the family has
a great sense of humor.

The courtyard between the old and new sections of
the castle.

It was so hot out, that almost everyone wanted to go back to the ship instead of having free time in the old city. We ended up on the bus that dropped the city-goers off before returning to the ship, so I managed to get a couple of pictures of the old city walls as we drove by.

Lunch had included Bienenstich cake, one of Monica's favourites. The restaurant maitre d', Predrag, stole a couple of pieces from the buffet and put them in our stateroom fridge for us as a coffee time treat. We're having a great time with him.