It is really hard to go from our awesome apartment to a small hotel room. We have made it to Nuremberg and it was a long day. Although we only walked three miles, we spent at least four hours in the car.

This morning we packed up our things. We had to check all the closets and drawers to make sure we didn’t leave anything behind. We really got settled into that space. We gathered the recycling, unloaded the dishwasher and did other general cleanup

We ate some pastries, cheese and meat for breakfast. Then checked out of the room at 11 a.m. Since we had to use the room key to exit the garage, Jacob did circles around the block while I ran into the reception area to check us out of the room.

We must have just missed each other because I waited for at least five minutes and was beginning to worry that Jacob took off without me.

We originally had planned to do some hiking this morning, but that would have taken us an hour in the wrong direction so instead Jacob found two castles nearby for us to visit. We first drove to the Moritzburg Castle just north of Dresden. We were barely able to find parking in the gravel lot across from the castle.

The Moritzburg Castle was built originally as a hunting lodge in the 1500s for Duke Moritz of Saxony. It is built on an artificial island so the aesthetic is impressive.

It was beautiful, sunny and warm outside and the castle grounds were not crowded. We wandered for a bit around the castle and gardens before heading back to the car. We found an ATM nearby and took out some cash, then stopped by an outside cafe and ordered two Thuringer bratwurst with bread. These seem to be the local bratwurst here and they were delicious.

After Moritzburg we were off to Meissen to visit the Albrechtsburg Castle and Cathedral. This castle was built in the late 1400s and sits on a hill above the Elbe River. We ran into a couple snafus on our way. There was some serious road construction going on and at one point the road just ended. Jacob wasn’t sure what to do and decided to go around the road block only to find traffic was headed straight at him and he had to quickly dart into a vacant parking lot.

From there we were twisting, turning and weaving our way through the town until we started to figure out the yellow U signs with arrows were the detour route. We only discovered this after ended up in a line of cars that were as lost as us.

We eventually got to our destination. Now we just had to park. Often there is ample parking for tourist attractions and this was no different, however, these parking lots required that you pay with coins only and we had no coins.

So after finding a place to park, then finding that we couldn’t park there, we were back in the car looking for another lot. Every lot we encountered wanted coins only. Jacob decided to try and get closer to the castle and hoped there would be parking there we could use. I wish I had taken photos because we ended up on tiny little cobblestone roads at a dead end and Jacob had to do a seven-point turn to get out of there.

We then decided to drive to a gas station and fill up the car. While Jacob was filling up the car, I’d go inside and buy a soda with our 5 euro note. That would give us the coins we needed to park. After we found our way to a gas station and acquired our coinage we were headed back to the original parking lot we had started in. Jacob estimates we spent an hour driving all over.

Across the street from the parking garage was an outdoor elevator that you can ride up to the castle for 1 euro. Had we thought of this earlier, we could have paid with our 5 euro note, gotten change back and then walked back across the street and paid for parking.

We decided to make the most of our time and rode the elevator up to the castle. We walked around the square but decided not to go inside the castle or cathedral because we were crunched for time having spent all of it trying to find parking. It was too bad because we had seen all sorts of famous porcelain in Dresden that was made in Meissen. But we had a three hour drive ahead of us still so we decided to head back.

The drive from Meissen to Nuremberg was mostly uneventful except that Jacob got distracted by someone entering the autobahn at 40 mph, so Jacob missed his exit. This meant we had to drive 10km to the next exit, turn around and head back, adding 20 more minutes to our already long drive.

I enjoyed the German radio station we were listening to, it played a mix of modern songs and oldies. One minute you could be listening to the Beach Boys then the next minute you’re listening to what sounds like a German hymn then the next its a brand new hit.

We are staying at our last Motel One. There are two Motel Ones in Nuremberg and we looked at both before settling on this one because it looked like it would be easier to get to… boy were we wrong. Our hotel is on a one-way street and the first go-around, we ended up in the wrong lane and had to do a huge loop to get back to the hotel.

Once we found our way back. We drove straight into the hotel lot.

We were both tired and ready to check into the hotel and order food for delivery. Our room is small, but clean and nicely updated. It is just a big adjustment coming back to this after having so much space.

We decided to order delivery to the hotel through an app on our phones. We had done this a few times before and it has worked well. However, being a Sunday, it took over an hour and a half for our order to arrive and once it did, Jacob thought we had received the wrong order. For one, they forgot the beverage we ordered. And two, they put peppercinis on our pizza instead of pepperoni! Turns out this second part is our fault, pepperoni is an American thing. Here peperoni means little green mild peppers…

Oh well. We are fed and resting.

Tomorrow we will explore the old town of Nuremberg in the morning. Then we will check out of our hotel and go visit the former Nazi rally grounds just outside of the city. Then it’s just a short drive to Munich where we will check into our last hotel before we leave on Tuesday! Oscar we are coming for you! Until then…