Heidelberg

Weiter nach Heidelberg

Onwards to Heidelberg

17/12/2015: Day One

Today we caught the train from Cologne to Heidelberg. It was very comfortable and super easy. The only problem was that as we didn’t speak a lot of German, we were worried about missing our stop. Luckily the family sitting near us were also going to Heidelberg and promised to tell us when we arrived. A friend of a friend met us at the train in the central part of the city and helped us bus to the Alte Stadt or Old Town where we were staying.

We are staying at a Hotel this time as there are no hostels in the Alte Stadt and we wanted to stay in the best part of town. We are staying at the Hotel Vier Jahreszeiten. We stayed in a little Anex Appartment just up the street from the main hotel. It was very comfortable and warm, we also had a bath which you don’t get very often when travelling. Breakfast was an additional €10 a day but worth it as it was a massive buffet style and you could eat as much as you wanted.

Day one we had a walk around the town before we headed up to the Heidelberg Castle. You can walk up to the top of the hill or you can pay a couple of Euro to catch the Cable Car up. We elected to take the cable car up to save our legs and to see the views. The Castle is amazing, and very reasonably priced. For €13 you can get entry and an Audio Guide to the Castle. There are also tours in many languages but Louise and I prefer to be able to take our own time. We learnt lots of interesting things about the Heidelberg Castle. Including that it has the Largest Wine Barrel in the world that the taxes of the people, paid in wine, used to be collected into. So much wine was collected and drunk by the Castle that they would empty it three times a year! Heidelberg Castle is also the only purposely left ruin in Europe. It was destroyed during the Hundred Years War but by the time people thought to repair the Castle it had been a ruin for so long, and as a ruin had inspired so much culture that it was decided to leave it as a ruin. The views from the Castle across the city were as amazing as the Castle itself.

We also went and completed the Philosophenweg, or Philosopher’s walk, which is a walk on the Southern Side of the Neckar. The legend is that this was the path that the male students had to take in order not to bump into the female students in town. It is quite steep but extremely pretty.

Heidelberg is an ancient student town. Starting with young nobles being educated in the Castle, to finishing schools for girls and modern day universities, much of the history of Heidelberg resolves around its student history. In fact a famous sweet the Heidelberg Studentenkuss, or Student Kiss, was made as a way of young men to court young women without fear of their governesses.

18/12/2015: Day Two

Today dawned wet and cold, a true German December Day, so we did not get up to much. We spent most of the day shopping, visiting Churches and eating warm food in the covered Christmas Markets. We headed back to the hotel for an early night and to soak in a nice hot bath, might as well make the most of it seeing as we have one for once.

19/12/2015: Day Three

We did not have long in Heidelberg today. As it turns out Frankfurt Hahn Airport is nowhere near Frankfurt and nowhere near Heidelberg and the only way to get there is via a three hour bus ride that only runs 3 times a day. While the evening bus should have gotten us to the airport in time it would have been a bit tight and with it being the Friday before Christmas we decided not to risk it and catch the lunchtime bus. You do not pre-book the bus, just turn up, so you need to be there early to ensure a seat. Luckily Heidelberg is the first stop because there was only space for a couple more people at the second town and we didn’t even bother to stop at the third. We got to Frankfurt Hahn Airport with 7 hours to spare before our flight, turns out we had read our flight time wrong. Unfortunately there is not much to do there so we set ourselves up in the only cafe with biscuits from the Christmas Markets, cups of tea and postcards to write. We seem to be making a habit of spending a long time in airport cafes. Our flight was then delayed by another couple of hours but we met some interesting people in the wait.

Finally time to head back to England, Germany it’s been great!