Heidelberg: Day 5
1/9/07

So here we go again (again)!
Now I'm in Strasbourg and having met Rodrigo at the train station (make that having had him met me at the train station, or something..) and having done a couple of half days work with him we have a few ideas for projects, one of which I will write a proposal for while I'm here.

I have FINALLY had a day to myself (Sunday) to wander about looking at things and I have HEAPS of amazing pics of Strasbourg to post but that will have to wait until I have the rest of the Heidelberg ones up!

So here we go with day 5 in Heidelberg... Today was the day we had a guided tour (with a seriously eccentric lady as our tour guide, she was great, if slightly verbose.. :-} ) of the castle that sits on the hill behind the old city of Heidelberg (after a morning of lectures of course, can't forget those). There are LOTS of photos but trust me, I've cut LOTS out too, otherwise I'd be here all day posting them all up on here!



Yet another great example of one of the stunning buildings in Heidelberg.
I think I mentioned I love the architecture around here? :-}

Another piece of amazing architecture, and wouldn't you know it, I've forgotten all the info that the guide told us about this church, there was too much to remember! I think it was a church that was about 12-13th Century and had been taken over as the University Church several (hundred) years ealier.
You can our guide's face between two heads at the bottom left. She had to SHOUT due a wedding (so there were church bells going off and lots of horn honking going on from the precession).

More of the same building.

I was wrong. This is the church I mentioned. Can't remember what the last building was in that case!

Flying the Californian(?) flag.
The houses on this street are mostly foreign offices of some sort(?). Someone please remind me of all the details if you were there and can remember!!

Looking back down the street from underneath the house in the previous photo.

This thing we didn't get any info on but I thought it looked pretty, so I took a photo.. And here's a slightly blurry one of the detail.

FINALLY at the castle.
This is looking from inside the castle grounds across the "moat" which was never completely full 'cause they couldn't get enough water to fill it! Not surprising really, it's pretty deep!
Instead they used it to put animals in to hunt, so the lazy buggers didn't have to try to hard.. Seriously!

Castle again.

Horses pulling a wedding carriage, and a driver with an amazing curly mustache.. Nice place for a wedding eh?
They asked us to move so they could take wedding photos without 100 tourists in the background. Can't blame them really!

Castle again. Figures above the entryway this time.

My first ever portcullis!!! I was TOTALLY stoked to see this!!!!! WHOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!

Castle again. More from inside the grounds. And you guessed it, some more!
Hope this keeps you happy Gemma! There'll be more castles for all in a couple of days time..

And for those of you who don't believe I was really there and was just ripping these photos off from some tourism website, one with me in it.

Two close-ups of figures carved into the facade of the building I'm standing in front of.

Very blurry but still a sundial on the wall of one of the buildings.

Inside the castle are two ridiculously large wine barrels.The little one holds something like 40 000 litres of wine and the other which hold 128 000 litres! The big one was made from the trunks of 130 oak trees. The must have liked their wine, those who lived there!

Yet another building inside the castle grounds. Are you getting the idea that I really like castles yet? Just wait until I get around to putting up the pics from the day we visited three in the one day!

Now, for those of you who couldn't two whatevers about castles (and I pity you all), at least you can admire the incredible view from the top..
Even the most anti-castle freak would have to agree that it's fairly spectacular wouldn't they? Here are some more. Nice view wot?

Stone guardians guarding the way out / in.

The way out via the stone tunnels under the castle. Not sure what these were for but if I know anything about castles, I'd lay a bet that these tunnels were for slowing down enemy invaders so they could have lots of nice steaming cauldrons of boiling oil tipped on them. They no doubt would also have had plenty of arrows sticking out of them by the time they got up to the castle, judging from the arrow slits in the walls. Sounds like an enjoyable day out..

The nice cobbled walkway they had to climb up to get in would be slippery in a suit of armour too I'm guessing.

Close to the end of the tour now, but couldn't resist one last photo of the castle. Nice backdrop to the statue eh? Oh okay then, just one more. :-}

On the way home we stopped in at the cathedral you could see from top of the castle. Inside it is quite amazing, athough these photos don't do it justice of course.

The stained glass inside tells the story of a time, and a date that many Germans are still funny about. Admittedly they are few. Most of them will have a joke about it, and if you don't mention it, they will.

Finally we said goodbye to our guide and walked home through the crazy peak hour pedestrian traffic. Peak hour being any time of day on a Saturday in the old part of town!

We were pretty knackered after the day's wanderings so some of us decided that a beer and some food were in order and headed to the Dubliner (no prizes for guessing this is an Irish pub), where a soccer match was being telecast on the big screen.

And here's a weird sculpture thingy I decided to take a photo of on the way back home after the Dubliner for some reason.

So as the Sun set on another day, I decided I hadn't quite had my fill of castles and thought I'd get one last shot from the bridge over the Neckar near the guesthouse (at maximum zoom so it's a bit grainy).



Phew!!

Made it! Another day of photos up and a few more yet to come. I'll do my best to get them up asap but will be busy writing proposals so I'll see how I go.

Until then, au revoir!