Nuremberg compresses a thousand years of German history into two square kilometres: the castle where every emperor from 1050 held court, the Nazi parade grounds built for 200,000, and Courtroom 600 where international law was born in 1945.
Beyond the imperial apartments, the Tiefer Brunnen is a 47m shaft hewn through sandstone, demonstrated by guided candle-lowering every 30 minutes. The Sinwell Tower's 113 steps reach the round keep of 1200. Daily 09:00-18:00 April-Sept.
Twelve cramped cells and a torture chamber carved beneath the Rathaus in 1340, used as a remand prison until 1806. Guided tours only, every 30 min, explaining the Nuremberg legal code and the role of the city executioner.
The half-timbered house where Europe's greatest Renaissance printmaker lived from 1509 until his death in 1528 — the only surviving artist's house of the period north of the Alps, with a working reconstruction of his printing press.
The covered wooden footbridge over the Pegnitz where Nuremberg's hangmen lived in enforced social isolation — their trade made them untouchable. Beside it stands the 1448 Weinstadel, one of Europe's largest surviving half-timbered buildings.
The actual courtroom at Bärenschanzstraße 72 where 21 Nazi leaders were tried from November 1945. The upper-floor exhibition covers the indictments, verdicts and the birth of international criminal law. Open Wed-Mon 09:00-18:00.
Tunnels dug into the castle rock in 1940 to shelter Nuremberg's treasures — the Schöner Brunnen figures, Dürer panels and the imperial regalia — from Allied bombing. Air-conditioned to constant humidity and still bearing wartime fittings.
Built into the unfinished Kongresshalle, modelled on the Colosseum and intended for 50,000. The 'Fascination and Terror' exhibition traces how the rallies were staged and filmed. Daily 10:00-18:00; interim exhibition during renovation.
Speer's granite tribune, where Hitler addressed 200,000 at the 1934 rally filmed as 'Triumph of the Will'. The US Army blew up the swastika atop it in April 1945; the crumbling stands are now being conserved rather than restored.
A former screw factory in Nuremberg's industrial east tracing the city's second life: the first German railway (Nuremberg-Fürth, 1835), Faber pencils, Schuco toys and MAN. Includes a reconstructed 1900s street with workshops.
The Hauptmarkt was cleared in 1349 by burning the Jewish quarter and killing 562 residents to make room for the market and Frauenkirche. A ground plaque and the street names Judengasse and Wolfsgasse mark the vanished quarter.
Germany's oldest technical museum, on the site where the Ludwigsbahn began in 1835. Holds the Adler replica locomotive, Ludwig II's rococo royal carriage, and an unflinching section on the Reichsbahn's role in deportations.
A walled artisans' courtyard rebuilt in 1971 inside the medieval Königstor bastion, where coppersmiths and leatherworkers still trade. The adjoining wall walk shows the 1400s fortifications that survived the 1945 firebombing.