Nuremberg Castle

Feel the slope in your legs first. The cobbles climb steeply here, worn smooth and uneven, and the stone around you is a warm, rusty red. That colour comes from the sandstone ridge under your feet. The castle grows straight out of that rock, so the hill and the walls are almost the same material. Pause for a moment and catch your breath. The emperors who rode up this hill felt the same climb.

What you are looking at is not one building but a long chain of them. Towers, halls, courtyards and walls run along the crest of the ridge, high above the old town. Locals usually call it the Kaiserburg, which means the Imperial Castle. For centuries, this rock was one of the most important addresses in the Holy Roman Empire. That empire was a loose union of German and central European lands under an elected emperor.

Here is the first surprise. The Holy Roman Empire had no fixed capital. Emperors were always on the move, travelling from city to city with their courts, their soldiers and their paperwork. They needed safe, impressive places to stay along the way. Nuremberg Castle was one of the favourite stops. Almost every emperor of the later Middle Ages spent time behind these walls, holding court and hosting meetings.

In 1356, the emperor Charles the Fourth issued a famous decree called the Golden Bull. It set out the rules for electing a new king. One of those rules said that each newly elected ruler should hold his first Imperial Diet in Nuremberg. An Imperial Diet was a great assembly of princes and city leaders. That single line in a legal document gave this city enormous prestige for generations.

Now look at the castle as two halves. There is the Imperial Castle, used by the emperors. And there was once the Burgraves' Castle, the home of the officials who guarded the site for the emperor. Those burgraves came from the Hohenzollern family. Later, that same family would rule Brandenburg, then Prussia, and finally a united Germany. Their story, in a sense, started on this ridge.

The relationship between the burgraves and the citizens of Nuremberg was not always friendly. The town grew rich through trade and crafts, and it wanted control of its own affairs. In the early fifteenth century, the Burgraves' Castle was badly damaged by fire. Soon afterwards, the city bought the remains from the Hohenzollerns. From then on, the townspeople, not a noble family, held the keys to this part of the hill.

Keep an eye out for the Pentagonal Tower, a squat tower with five sides. It is often described as one of the oldest surviving parts of the whole complex. Nearby stands the tall, round Sinwell Tower. Its name comes from an old German word for round. If you climb it, the narrow stairs open onto a view across a sea of steep red roofs and church spires.

Inside the Imperial Castle, one room surprises many visitors. It is the double chapel. Two chapels are stacked on top of each other, joined by an opening in the floor. The lower level is heavier and darker. The upper level is lighter and more elegant. The style is Romanesque, which means round arches and thick, solid columns from before the Gothic age. The emperor worshipped above, while his household gathered below.

The second surprise sits in a small building in the outer courtyard. It is the Deep Well. A castle on a rock had one great weakness — water. During a siege, the defenders could not simply walk down to the river. So workers cut a shaft straight down through the sandstone to reach groundwater. Guides often pour a little water down the shaft. Listen closely. The splash takes a surprisingly long time to come back up.

Not everything you see is as old as it looks. In the Second World War, Nuremberg suffered terrible bombing, and the castle was heavily damaged. Much of what stands today was carefully rebuilt in the decades after the war. Look closely at the stonework. In some places, the colours and textures change slightly. Those changes show where old blocks meet newer repairs. The castle is both medieval and postwar at the same time.

One long, sturdy building with a steep roof was once the imperial stables, the Kaiserstallung. It was built to store grain and shelter horses for the castle. Today, it has a very different life. It works as a youth hostel. So young travellers now sleep in a building that once held the emperor's supplies. It is a nice example of how old places find new purposes.

Walk to the edge of the castle terraces and look down. Below you, the old town spreads out in tight lanes and gabled houses. Close to the foot of the castle, near the Tiergärtner Gate, stands the half-timbered house where the painter Albrecht Dürer lived and worked. Dürer was the great artist of the German Renaissance. From up here, you can see how artists, merchants and emperors all lived within a few minutes' walk of each other.

If the season is right, the castle gardens add another layer. Green lawns and flower beds sit against the hard red walls. On a quiet morning, you may hear only birds, footsteps on gravel and the distant bells of the churches below. In the evening, the low sun turns the sandstone deep orange. The stone seems to hold the warmth of the day.

Before you leave, put your hand on the wall beside you. Feel how rough the sandstone is, and how the surface crumbles a little under your fingers. This is the same rock that carried emperors, burgraves, merchants and rebuilders. As you walk back down the hill, look over your shoulder now and then. The castle stays on the ridge above the roofs... watching the town it helped to build.