Things to do in Nuremberg

Nuremberg is the capital of Franconia in everything but title, and Franconia is not the Bavaria of the posters. No Alps, no lederhosen, a different dialect. The beer tradition runs to smoked malt rather than lager.

This was a free imperial city. The Holy Roman emperors kept their regalia here. Ninety per cent of the old town was destroyed in January 1945, then rebuilt to the medieval plan. What you walk through is a reconstruction, and an honest one about it.

What the old town and its edges hold:

• The Kaiserburg. The imperial castle on the sandstone ridge, with the double chapel and the deep well.
• The Duerer house. Where the painter lived from 1509 until his death, one of the few buildings that survived.
• The rally grounds. The unfinished Congress Hall and the Zeppelinfeld southeast of the centre, with the documentation centre inside.
• Courtroom 600. Where the trials sat from 1945, in the Palace of Justice, still a working court.
• The Christkindlesmarkt. On the Hauptmarkt from late November, the market most other German Christmas markets are imitating.

The offer here is thin and self-guided. Walking routes and scavenger-hunt games unlock the old town at your own pace, bought once and played on a phone. That suits a compact centre where the distances are short and the signage is decent.

For the rally grounds and the courtroom a guide adds more. Those are usually taken as part of a day from Munich or Bamberg rather than booked here. Fast trains run two hours from Munich.

Practical

• Christmas market. Late November to 24 December. The old town is impassable at weekends and hotels book out by summer.
• Rally grounds. Forty minutes on tram four from the centre, then a long walk on open ground. Allow half a day.
• Courtroom 600. Open to visitors only when the court is not sitting, which usually means weekends.
• Bratwurst. Nuremberg's are finger-sized and sold in threes in a roll. The protected name means they are made nowhere else.
• Getting here. Two hours from Munich, an hour from Bamberg, and the station is at the edge of the walls.