Nuremberg is a city on the river Pegnitz and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. When people think of Nuremberg, they usually think of gingerbread, toys, Christmas, the Reich Party Rally Grounds, or the Nuremberg Trials. But the old town of Nuremberg is much more than this and indeed Nuremberg probably comes closest to many tourists' expectations of a typical German city: On the one hand one can find half-timbered houses, gothic churches within a medival city wall in the shadow of the towering imperial castle, which was one of the most important residences of the emporers of the Holy Roman Empire.