Nuremberg

Unfortunately for Nuremberg, the glory that the Holy Roman Empire and the Bavarian kings of old brought to this city made it the perfect place for the Nazis to launch their anti-Semitic manifestos back in the 1930s. That, in turn, made it a symbolic target for Allied bombers, who razed it to dust in the last year of the war. Later, Nuremberg was elected as the host city for the war crime hearings of the remaining perpetrators of the atrocities of WWII, an end to a series of darker historical moments in the tale of this Franconian town.

Today, Nuremberg has surged into the future, proud of its restored Altstadt area, with its half-timbered homes, castles and cobbled lanes. Visitors throng to Bavaria’s second largest town year-round, but more so, to partake in its famous Christmas market. Nuremberg tour guides also love to showcase the frothy dark beers that make Bavaria such a hit each Oktoberfest. The town's tumultuous 20th-century history is chronicled sensitively at the Nazi Party headquarters and with guided tours of Courtroom 600 (where the Nuremberg Trails took place), while other institutions nod to the great works of Albrecht Dürer – a son of the city himself.