Heidelberg:  "Ich stehe auf dem Brucke, und spuck in dem Kann..."

July 14th – 20th

            Ah, Heidelberg: the city in Germany at which we feel most at home, and also which we associate most with ice cream and gelato (maybe there’s a correlation?).  My Oma was born and raised in Heidelberg, and my great uncle, her younger brother, and his children live in town and surrounding areas, so we spent a lot of time hanging out with our cousins-once-removed and walking around the city.  We also had a lot of downtime, being what Anneliese calls “completely lazy and boring,” as the weather was coldish and wet, Anneliese came down with a cold, and Isabella wasn’t feeling great for a day or two.  I had no such excuse, but was feeling incredibly lazy, and actually suggested we watch a movie the first morning (“Shopaholic”), instead of going out immediately.  Bad, I know, but sometimes when you’re doing hectic traveling you need time to reboot.

            That’s not to suggest we didn’t do anything in Heidelberg, however!  After walking 7 ½ miles in and out of Strasbourg earlier in the day, by the time we arrived in Heidelberg, we were ready to crash.  Our cousins Sonja and Irene, however, had other plans.  Through a lucky turn of events, we’d managed to arrive on one of the three nights in the year when there is a Schlossbeleuchtung, or Castle Illumination, a fireworks display in remembrance of when a French army blew up the castle during a retreat in the 1680’s.  So, after a fantastic lasagna dinner, we walked about a mile down along the Neckar River, and then climbed over a chain onto a small dock (chains are there to be climbed over, right?) to get a better look at the fireworks against the Old Bridge and the Castle.  It was beautiful, but afterwards we were quite ready for bed! 

            Our four “big things” in Heidelberg were as follows:

·         An evening outing to the ruins of St. Michael’s Monastery and the Nazi amphitheater on the Heiligenberg Mountain.  St. Michael’s Monastery was founded in the 800’s, and has been in ruins since the

      1500’s, when a steeple collapsed in the

       night and killed the last three remaining monks in their beds!  Nearby, and much more recent (and more sobering) than the castle, is a large amphitheater built during

     the Third Reich to host German-Nationalism promoting plays, speeches, and celebrations.  The amphitheater can hold up to 8,000 people, and is still used for performances.   

 ·  Our visit to the old Heidelberg Schloss.  A mandatory outing for any visitor to Heidelberg, the castle is the crown of Heidelberg, making it one of the most romantic cities in all of Germany, and inspiring the pens of writers from Goethe to Mark Twain.  As far as castles go, it is fairly modern (the current structure dates from the 1600’s), but is also largely in ruins from the said explosion set off by the French army, several lightening strikes, and a bad fire.  Today, it is also known for having the second-largest wine barrel in the world, which was used to collect liquid taxes from farmers! 

 

        ·  Back to Anneliese now: Our visit to an old Burg, or Knight’s Castle, just up the Neckar, was also very neat.  On the Berg (Mountain) to the right it has an old town which is still completely walled in, and on the Berg to the left, it has four Burgs (Knight’s castles) from the 11^th and 12^th century, two of which are still lived in.  Climbing up to one of the Burg’s, we wandered about the ruins, walking into the rooms and trying to guess what they might have been used for.  A very cool thing about German ruins is that they are usually not fenced in, and so oftentimes one can just wander about in them.  Johanna, Isabella, and I even climbed the tower, which was completely black inside (who knows what was really lurking in there!), and looked out from the top onto the valley below.  So cool was it that Johanna had to break into song with pieces from the musical “Camelot”!

        

    ·  But our greatest achievement, by far, was climbing up to the Königstuhle, the 1860ft, 3 inch high hill/mountain behind the Heidelberg Schloss on Friday afternoon.  It had been suggested to us by our cousin that while in Heidelberg, we ought to at least take the Funicular up the Mountain, and then walk down on the Himmelsleiter, or “Heaven’s Ladder,” an old stone stairway leading down from the top of the mountain.  However, who on earth wants to pay €9 each to ride to the Königstuhle with the funicular?  Not tight-pursed us!  So, we started to walk up.  At first we took a road, until we found a small path, which looked like it lead up to the Königstuhl.  As soon as we stepped onto our new, slightly steeper, path, it began to rain.  However, we kept a good pace, until we saw found Himmelsleiter.  Not only is the Himmelsleiter long, but the steps going up are uneven and have a wide range of size, from 6 inches, to a good foot and a half high!  But a solid hour of climbing later, we were at the top.  After walking about at the top for a while, it began to cloud over, and a cold wind came up, so we decided to turn about, and head back down, practically hopping off the larger steps (yes, we could feel it on our bones the next day!).  On the way down, I counted every step, and guess how many steps there are in the Himmelsleiter?  One Thousand, One Hundred and Sixty!  AAHHH!!!!     

       After our long day of hiking, we returned to Sonja’s, and left Isabella to make dinner while Johanna and I ran over to Onkel Ludwig’s to show him some photos of the family.  He had something else in mind first, however, and so we spent a lovely hour watching videos of his family from the 60’s, which included clips from when my Oma, one of my aunts, and twin uncles visited Heidelberg.  Unfortunately, due to the hour, we had to stop watching, and instead moved onto showing our own family photos.  By 11 o’clock however, it was time to go, and so rushing home, we quickly ate a late dinner, packed, and went to bed, or attempted to.  Due to a racking cough I had had for the last week or so, Sonja and I didn’t go to bed till the wee hours of the morning, which was tough, since by 6:53 a.m. we were on a train, again.  Rushing through the Heidelberg train station with only two minutes before our train was to leave, I called out “What Gleis (“platform”) is it?” to which Johanna replied “Gleis 11!” Isabella and I rushed past Gleis 9a, 9b, 10a….  Where did Gleis 11 go??? “There is no Gleis 11!” I yelled back to Johanna.  “Wait, it’s not 11, it’s 8!” she said, pulling out a sheet of paper.  So back we rushed, and managed to hop onto the train just before it pulled out of Gleis 8.

             Will post more soon!

Anneliese and Johanna (and Isabella, who, in real time, is now back home in the States preparing for college.  But at this point in the trip, she was still with us!)

Eis!