Heidelberg, Germany – April 19, Tuesday

Heidelberg is Germany’s oldest university town and is located in the Neckar Valley, east of the Rhine. It is most famous as the site of the Heidelberg Castle. It is a red sandstone ruin that is located 330 feet above the river. It was home to the Palatinate princes till it was partially destroyed by fire in the 17^th century. It was destroyed twice by wars, first in the 30 years War and then a few years after that. Both times it was by the French. Both Mark Twain and Johann von Goethe were inspired by this castle.

We are docked this morning in Manheim, Germany. There is a beautiful park here where we are docked. Our bus tour takes us through Manheim up to the Heidelberg Castle. Manheim is an industrial town with both John Deere and Mercedes Benz being in the town. So far we are averaging over 4 miles a day on these tours. But, today, it is not raining, cool, but not raining.

Here are a couple of pictures of us and Tom and Marlene on the balcony and a couple of pictures of Manheim from the bus.

Now we get to Heidelberg. It is a beautiful little college town. Everywhere we have been so far is so clean. Today is a beautiful day, no chance of rain. Our bus takes us up this winding road to the castle, but then we walk. So far we have been averaging about four miles a day.

In this first group are a couple of things I do remember. You will see a big gate at the beginning, which is names Elizabeth’s gate. This was the Prince’s wife and he erected the gate for her. Pretty nice birthday present. It was done over one night. Also you will see in one of the pictures a green area, it is not big. The prince’s like to hunt so they would fill this small area with wild game and then ‘hunt’ them.

Here are the last of the castle pictures. There is a large wine cellar in the castle. The king could have the wine sent from the wine cellar up to his residence. Not sure how, but he did. What is left of the façade contains many statues, both gods and goddesses and of family members.

Our bus now took us down from the castle to the town of Heidelberg where we had some free time to shop and take some more pictures. In these pictures of the town is one where you can see the castle up in the hill.

Lastly here are some pictures down by the river where we caught our bus back to the boat. The second to the last picture is of our boat as we are coming over the bridge.

We will now sail to Rudesheim, Germany where we will spend the night. There we have a tour of a winery, which I will post next.