A monday in Germany

I slept pretty well yesterday, but still woke up once or twice during the night. I did some writing and finally figured out the deal with my pictures (which still doesn't quite work) my grandparents and I then packed up and left at 9:00am to catch the bus to Heidelberg. The bus station wasn't that far away, about a 5 minute walk, so we were on time for the bus, but the bus, how ever, was not very on time. It was 10 minutes late, but when it arrived we hopped aboard and got on. The bus started forward right as I turned around to sit in my seat and I was thrown back into it pretty fast. Good thing I was in front of my seat! It was kind of interesting to observe the people on the bus. Almost everyone had a book and were reading. They probably ride the bus everyday and come prepared. We switched busses half way and got of to wait for the next bus, which was also late by 15 minutes. We got onto that bus and he started really quickly so I didn't have any time to sit down so I stood up. It was a fun bus ride and I enjoyed just standing there and looking around as the buildings passed by.

We were dropped off at the bus station right next to the famous bridge. We then walked our way up town to find the Funicular so we could ride it up to the to the castle. The Funicular is kind of like a cable care that goes up the side of the hill... I'm not really sure because I never saw it. It happened to be closed for maintenance so we instead walked up all 300 of the stairs to the top. I was able to get some cool shots as we ascended. Once we got to the top we walked through the gateway and I got my first view of the castle. It was very big and a lot of it was in ruin. There was a large walk way/vantage point to the left as you walked in and then there was a really long pathway that went a good 1/4 of a mile down to the other side of the castle gardens (which were outside the castle).

We then went to the gatehouse to buy some tickets to go in the castle and the lady gave us too many for some reason so when we got to the bridge entrance there was some confusion. There were two guys there. One spoke English and German and the other just spoke German. They were kind of funny. The one guard had to go back and fix the mistake and once that was figured out they let us in. We crossed the bridge which gave us a view of the moat and one of the towers that had a chunk fallen off. We walked right in and then turned to the left and signed up for an English tour of the castle. We had about 20 minutes before it started so we took a restroom break, which was in the wine cellar. We then looked around down there for a bit and then came back and went to the place we were supposed to meet at in the castle. It was a small room with some different pieces of armor and some history on the castle. We then went across the stone hallway to a different room when the tour started and the German lady showed us a model of what the castle originally looked like and then what it looked like now. She told us that the French had tried to take over the castle, but couldn't get through the walls because they were almost 20 feet thick. The French eventually were able to take over the inside and then used explosives to blow up one of the towers (That would have been quite a site!!).

We then moved on to over look the moat which was very interesting. It wasn't even full of water, it had a nice lawn. I guess when they weren't at war they had the moat filled with deer so the prince electors could go hunting (and if you ask me that's kind of lame...). When they were at war however, they would pump water from the well and fill up the moat, but it never

The whole castle was very artistic! Even the bridge has a ton of designs and huge amount of work that must have been put into it. The castle took over 300 years to build and four different kings built their own little section on it before the fall in the 300 year war (If I'm remembering right) Over the next couple hundred years the castle was rebuilt, but then almost all of it burnt to the ground when lightening struck the bell tower and it caught on fire. Even though the castle was made out of stone the interior of the castle had a lot of wood work and was very flammable. The guide said it burned for three days and four nights.

We then toured the inside of a portion of that castle that had been rebuilt after the fire and got to go into several of the rooms and look at the furniture. There was a lot of amazing paintings and the floor even had an interesting background. Instead of being marble like it appeared to be it was actually painted wood with a thin surface of glass over it. They called it peasant marble because it wasn't expensive. They cut down some 60,000-100,000 oak trees I think to make it all. That's a lot of wood! After that we went and saw the "chapel" that was actually all still original because it was all stone and wasn't affected by the fire. I thought that it was cool that it survived. There was a lot of statues and paintings all over the place. The tour ended at the chapel and we went to the wine cellar again to get something to eat at the little restaurant that was down there. I had some coffee and a sandwich. The bread was really hard, but you just had to take small bites. We sat down at a table and a bunch of foreign exchange students sat down at our table too. A lot of them were from Cypress and one was from England. I think they were on a field trip.

After we ate we went and walked around on the look out from the castle and got to see all of Heidelberg which was a lot of fun. My grandma wanted to walk through a small museum on pharmacy’s they had there too so we did that. We then left the castle after about 4 hours of walking around in it and went into the outside garden. I saw the tower that had been blown up and got up close to it. I guess it's been sitting there for over 300 years now. The gardens aren't in full bloom yet, but there are some flowers coming up. I saw some of the fountains and then walked around and enjoyed the peace and quiet. I also got to see some different views of the castle. After I walked around the garden we walked back to the castle bridge and then to the other side of the castle garden. There is an archway that you have to go under and it is said to have been built in one night for a surprise for a king's wife. All the stones had been pre-made and then in one night all put together. It was kind of hard to believe.

We then left the castle and took a longer less steep way down the hill because my grandparents didn't want to walk all the way down those stairs (Which is understandable!). Walking down was fun and I got to see a lot of houses and churches. I even saw a university that was there. I got some pictures of some interesting trees. When we got to the bottom of the hill we walked down a "main street" sort of a place where there was just this giant wide walkway for people with stores on either side. It was a lot of fun to walk through. We stopped at a bakery to get a special German dessert called Rosinenschnecken. It's kind of like a large, round and flat cinnamon role. Very tasty!

After that we then met up with my uncle and picked up my cousin from school. We drove over to a place where my grandparents needed to sign some papers so they could drive over here while my cousin Emily and I went to a bookstore and went to star bucks. I had a chai tea something or other and it tasted really good. Kind of a sweet tea/hot cocoa taste with a spicy flavor as well. After that we met up with my uncle and grandparents again and went to the electronics store and looked around. After that we went and picked up my aunt and other cousin and we switched vehicles and my uncle and grandpa and I went and did some errands and then my grandma, aunt, and two cousins went to do some other errands. After that we all went home and started on dinner. It was a nice evening and again good to be home.

I got a lot of pictures, but a lot of them were kind of dark, which was disappointing. They looked fine as I was taking them, but once I got them on the computer they were kind of dark. I will post them on my site anyway though. I'm looking forward to coming back to the castle in the coming years and remembering all this!

My adventure continues with.... Germany: Day 7 (actually 6 because I didn't get here until Wednesday last week)