Day 4 Friday May 27/11 Heidelberg

Willie's favourite facade because you can see the inner structure .  If the castle was intact you would not see this cross section.  

In the morning after our stay at the NH hotel in Frankfurt we headed by bus to Heidelberg.  This was the touring destination for the day as scheduled.  We met Willie, guide # 3, and ours for the day.  What a character.  To me he was the quintessential European.  Willie was a wealth of knowledge of course and we learned that he taught music, played the flute with a group in public venues and was an historian by hobby.  His passion was contagious and his sense of humour kept us entertained.  

 Heidelberg Castle ruin is perched up on the hill overlooking this Baroque town.  What an impressive ruin!  The size of it was hard to believe so I could hardly imagine what it must have been like in its hey day.

Ornate and detailed statues remain intact.

Once Willie pointed out the mason marks we started seeing them everywhere. 

Willie imagined sitting in this window listening to music and having a glass of wine.  Sounds lovely!

Ornate facades still remain.

I like the knee decorations of this interesting gentleman. 

From the ramparts was a great view of the town making you realize what a strategic place this was to build the castle.  This castle has a reddish hue due to the natural colour of  local sandstone from which it was made.  Heidelberg is a University town boasting the oldest University in Germany.  The red roofs became a common sight for us as we climbed up to castles and fortifications in other towns and looked down on the beautiful sights below.  But could you imagine scalding oil being thrown down you if you were an attacker?

 Below is the wine barrel with a dance floor on top!  When court was in session here there was no danger of running out of wine.  In those days it was safer to drink wine than water and we were told by several guides that the average medieval person drank up to 5 litres a day!  I feel like a saint.  The quality deteriorated the lower down you were in the class system and the alcohol content was lower than it is now.  Even children drank wine.  Beer became the liquid of choice at some point in some areas but I think that was later.

Inside the ruin is the world's largest wine barrel in the world.  You can see the steps up to the dance floor.  How convenient!! 

Willie, in the centre holding "lollipop" #3.

This tower was bombarded heavily by the French during an invasion but could not be totally destroyed.  How thick are the walls??

Centre Square  down in the town. 

One of the many gorgeous windows that captured my attention in Europe.  

 Once Willie dropped us off we had time to wander the streets of beautiful Heidelberg.  I caught a glimpse of Willie at a cafe having a beer and a smoke adding to my image of his European style.

 We were treated by Uniworld to a lovely lunch and drink at this huge restaurant called "Beer Culture".  I couldn't even begin to pronounce the German name.  In the centre is a Maypole.  We saw Maypoles in every town but not often inside a building like this.  The pink represents strawberries, the white and green represent asparagus.  Both were in season when we were in Germany.  German's prefer white asparagus and I will definitely be trying it out at home despite the expense.  We had white asparagus soup, beef goulash served on green linguini and strawberries and cream for dessert.  Yummy!

"Beer Culture" was in a very old building with fascinating architecture and decor. 

Round yellow candles added to the spring festival atmosphere.  

Buses took us the short distance to the port of Offenbach exactly back on schedule and where we should be.  Can you imagine how happy we were to get back onboard the River Queen?  Even though we were gone only one night it was a great feeling.  It was a strange sight to see the top viewing deck flattened.  We still had lots of deck left to sit on but this had to be done to accommodate the low bridges of the Main River which we were now navigating.  The Main water level seemed to be higher than the Rhine.  It is also a narrower River with less barge cargo traffic and more recreational traffic.  Lots of Locks coming up as well.

We had a great dinner onboard in Ivan's  (Ee-von) section.  He was the only Serb on the boat.  What a complicated life some people have to deal with.  I asked Ivan if he had seen the news today.  (Mladic had been captured after 16 years in hiding and would be facing trial eventually.)  Ivan answered with such passion and vehemence.  It made me realize that things are not black and white at all and not always what they seem. It seemed like a simple question but no more political talk for me!  I loved being in Ivan's section always however.