My Weekends

Ever since I arrived in Erlangen, I´ve been travelling every weekend. Andreu and I try to meet in the weekends, and until now that´s what we´ve been doing every weekend. He is living in Zürich for his Erasmus exchange (at the ETH Zürich) and will finish his Master degree in Mechanical Engineering by the end of the summer.

The most economic way to travel Erlangen - Zürich (or the other way around) is by train but it takes 6 hours just one-way. So while we actually only have 48 hours to spend together, 12 hours of them go to the train trip and an additional 12 hours, or more, to sleeping. But that´s the way it is. The weekends are nice but always really busy as there isn´t much time. Sometimes we stay in the city where we live or we visit another place.

Luzern
Three weeks ago we visited Luzern, a very beautiful city at one hour distance from Zürich. Apart from a pianofestival that was going on there at that moment (we visited a free piano concert in a bar), the city itself is very beautiful. It has very narrow streets curving through the old centre and a lot of tiny precious squares with old fountains and surrounded by buildings with painted facets.

Luzern by night with the wooden bridge on the background

It also has a lot of monuments, they say the ´most lively stone on the world´ is located in Luzern. It is a monument to memorize the people who died in the war. The stone is a sculpture directly carved into a huge rock hill, it represents a lion just before it died. The facial expression is very dramatic and full of suffering. From a distance it doesn´t look huge, but its measures are 6 by 10 meters! Luzern is also famous for its historial wooden bridges with a lot of 17th century´s paintings hung down the roof of the bridge. The paintings show different scenes of the daily life but they all have one thing in common: there is always a skeleton displayed in some kind of role. It represented the Death, as at that moment the city was suffering from the Pest and a lot of people were dying. It was really a pity that we could only spend a few hours in Luzern, for sure I will go back to have a more relaxed visit.

Nürnberg
Last weekend we visited Nürnberg, a big historical city which is at 20 minutes distance from Erlangen. The most famous Christmas market of Germany is located there, it´s called the Christkindlermarkt. Since Nürnberg is supposed to be a huge city (it has an airport etc), I thought it would be very industrial or like a monopolitan city. But the city is precious, it has a long history, a real historical centre with its city walls still intact and a lot of roots from its past. The old city centre is totally car-free and there are 2 streams of a river running through the centre, which gives the city a very nice atmosphere. There are small bridges, small paved pedestrian walkways and old streetlights with warm yellow light. It´s not built on a flat ground, so the streets run up and down, which sometimes offer really nice views over the lower part of the streets and squares. There is a real old city entrance to the old town and right beside it, there is an old handicraft area where a lot of shops are located, selling traditional handicraft products. The shops are all housed in original historical buildings which gives you the feeling that you have returned to the middle ages!

Downtown Nürnberg

Approaching the Christkindlermarkt

A golden tower on the market square ´Hauptmarkt´

I really liked it, but since our main goal was to see the Christkindlermarkt, we didn´t have much time to spend walking around the city. The Christmas market was really crowded and not really too big or beautiful, it wasn´t as magnificient as I had expected it to be. But nevertheless, it was nice to have been there and on the main square there was also a very nice church in a style that I hadn´t seen before. It had a very nice detailed broad facet. For sure this means another visit! Probably this weekend...............

Zürich & Erlangen

The weekends we spent in Zürich and Erlangen were also mainly related to visiting Christmas markets. In the Zürich main train station (a truly huge building with different floors full of shops) there is a huge Christmas tree and it´s decorated with I know don´t how many Swarovski crystals! The dream of every girl hahaha. But it was really beautiful and shiny. Of course there was a tall glass wall protecting the tree. Also, they put some very innovative and interesting Christmas lighting in the streets. There was a long row of vertically placed light tubes along the length of the street which show dynamic patterns together when you are walking through the street. It´s really cool!

The huge Swarovski Christmas Tree...where are my sunglasses???

Have a closer look.... They put a lot of Swarovski figures down there too

This is really cool street lighting !!!

Zürich by night! Taken from a bridge across the Limmat river

In Erlangen there is also a small Christmas market, but it´s a very cosy one! I like the square where it is located and there are lots of tables where people crowd together to drink glühwein. Yes I like it :D! Erlangen also has a long history and all the historical locations are marked by a huge pin stuck into the ground. Whenever you see that huge pin (it´s like 3 meters high and looks like a silver needle with a red ball on top) you know that it´s a historical spot. Near the pin there is always a description explaining why it´s an important place and usually there are some old photos too. When I first arrived in Erlangen I saw those pins here and there and I had no idea why they had put some huge needles in the ground. Now I know why, and I think it´s a really nice idea. It catches your attention and you don´t need a map to follow some historical route, you just walk around and you will just SEE the pins everywhere. I think Erlangen also really has its beauty.