O Heidelberg...O Heidelberg...how lovely are your branches

You aren't confused, this is our second run through Germany. There are few that are reading this blog at this moment who could make an 'A' in European geographics if forced to take a test now, but the journey makes sense on the map, trust me.

The one long day we had there never quite warmed up enough to burn the fog off totally. So it's kind of hazy in this pic. This is a view over the Neckar River bridge.

We reached Heidelberg a little before peak season for the leaves changing this fine Autumn, but we still had some wonderful color around us. Ragan booked us at The Dubliner Pub & Hotel. Yes, an Irish pub in Germany and one with a hotel? It may seem like a weird combination, but not that unsual in Heidelberg. We were pleasantly surprised at the accomodations.

A view of the Heidelberg Castle from the main street in Old Town Heidelberg.

Views of the Heidelberg Castle

For Heidelberg to be such a small town, they are modern with their walking tours. We stopped by the Christmas store (random right?) and picked up the modern Pocket PC device they have that takes you through the entire city point by point going through the history. We just kept saying Rome needed to give them a call! They can't even seem to make a decent paper map to follow some of their major sites, much less a wireless device with narrators and pictures. You could take your time and go at your own pace. We just spent an easy day making or way through town and finishing up at the Heidelberg Castle that is WAY up the hill. And that's OK, we haven't had any bun burning stairs in awhile.

This is the castle once you've hiked 413 stairs and entered the main gates. I know this exact number because they torture you by having the numbers painted on every stair. Thanks for the reminder. Momma Bear wouldn't have figured that out from the shortness of breath. 

This is the facade that is still standing and is to the right of the picture you saw above.

Obviously beer is one of the things Germany is known for, but during the days of this castle, wine was their main beverage. Little did we know, this was the small wine cask!!

The BIG wine cask didn't even fit into the camera frame, and it commonly referred to as "The Great Barrell." You have some idea of how large it is since there are people standing on the platform that was built on top of it. It holds 130,000 liters!

This is the Perkeo, long time keeper of the very large wine cask.

This was the tower where they held the ammunition. As you can tell from the very large ruin on the ground, it got a little hot in there on the second attempt to blow it up and KABOOM.

This is a sad story. But this is a hanging over one of the doors at the castle The story goes that the contractor for the castle had twin boys who were at the site one day and fell to their death. So, in rememberance of them, this was created and placed in a prominent area of the grounds.

Just so you know, this is one of the reasons why Europeans can STUFF their faces with pastries all the time! This is one section of the sea of bikes at the train station so that all of these people can bike to and fro their little cottages everyday. I would hate to be the one with bike right in the middle. 

Heidelberg was a simple few days and it was a nice way to start the end of our trip. We celebrated Ragan's birthday there! And how else do you do that? With a Pizza Hut pizza of course. It was seriously one of the best pizzas we'd had in awhile, including Italy. We found out later that the food at our pub was FABULOUS, but it was a funny little American way to ring in year 42 for him.