My travel in Europe:
By train in Southern Germany, 2023

Content:

• Planning for a round trip in Southern Germany
• Day 1, Karlsruhe
• Day 2, Heidelberg
• Day 3, Heidelberg
• Day 4, Mannheim
• Day 5, Mannheim
• Day 6, Speyer
• Day 7, Rastatt
• Day 8, Rastatt - airport

Day 2, Heidelberg:

Waking up in the morning in Karlsruhe. After we spent many hours yesterday to try to get these train tickets we gave up. You needed a german bank acount to get this ticket (this was in may 2023, nowadays I think it's easier, just a credit card I have been told). We was now in Germany, what to do ? We decided to buy ordinary train tickets but only stay one week instead of three or four weeks in Germany.

Overview of old town of Heidelberg:

Altstadt is old town in German language.

Karlsruhe:

Walking over the Marktplatz as we did yesterday. The train station is a 10 minutes walk from our stay.

Walking along the street Karl-Friedrich Strasse and pass by Markgräfliches Palace.

At Ettlingen street we see this park with so lot of flowers.

Therme Vierordbad:

We think this is a thermal bath, look a bit abounded.

Karlsruhe Zoo:

Next block, we have now come to the Karlsruhe Zoo. When walking along this zoo we suddenly hear a loud scream, what animal was that ? A few seconds later we see a very short man running toward us and screaming and waving with his arms. He stop in front of me and stared at me, suddenly he spits at me, he miss. What should I do now, take some action or call the police ? Suddenly he calm down down and walk away. Let us leave this town, it's not fun anymore !

• https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Karlsruhe Zoo (Karlsruhe Zoo, Wikipedia)

We bought two new tickets, from Karlsruhe to Heidelberg, cost 11 Euro each. Here we leave Karlsruhe.

Heidelberg:

It doesn't take very long time until we arrive at Hedielberg HBF. This is at the modern city center, but we are interested in the old town. We study the information and find we could take bus number 20, waited 20 minutes and then we go, a short ten minutes ride.

From the train station we take bus number 20 which take us to Altstadt, Old Town of Heidelberg. The tunnel we see in front of us is the Gaisberg tunnel. After that tunnel the city changed its character, from modern city to old, great !

• https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Heidelberg (Heidelberg, Wikipedia)

We jump off the bus at the bus station Peterkirche and we had only 200 meters walk to our hotel Acor Boutique at the street Friedrich Ebert Anlage. To stay at a hotel in old town is very convenient for us, only short walks to everything we want to look at.

Opposite to our hotel we have this nice view, old buildings in front of the mountain. On the left side of this town is the palace which we plan to visit today. We know this day will give us a nice weather but don't know for sure about tomorrow.

We can't have our room until 3 o' clock, but we could leave our luggage at the hotel and they put them inside our room later. We start walking into the old town, what a nice town and its sunny. A bit hungry now and we looking for some place to eat lunch. Coffee, sandwich, beer and a small pizza and we were satisfied.

There are a lot of exciting alleys to look into. There are a very lot of young people everywhere, they study at the university we guess.

Heiliggeistkirche:

We walking towards the cable car that shall take us up to the palace at the hill. We pass by this big church, Heiliggeistkirche.

Heidelberg Marktplatz:

Behind the church is a square, the Heidelberg Marktplatz. Here we found a small food store that we visit when we some food to bring with us.

Kornmarkt:

A memory plate of a chapel.

The white stones mark where it stood once. This is the Kornmarkt.

To the right we should have our cable car.

A well in the center of Kornmarkt.

Bergbahnen:

Here it is, the Bergbahnen to the castle.

Study the information carefully. Tickets cost 9 Euro each, it feels a bit expensive for that short ride. But included is a return ticket and the ticket to the castle. We don't plan to take the cable car back when we are finished, we walk down to get better views of the surroundings to the castle.

After we bought the tickets we enter the cable car.

Up we go, but it was a very short ride, 200 meter or ? We could have walked faster.

Leave the cable car and walk toward the castle, or Schloss as they say here in Germany.

This is the walk path if we had walked up to the castle.

Heidelberg Castle:

Enter the castle through the gate, it's 35 years since last time I visit the place.

The building blocks looks to be a bit fragile, lot of them had fallen down because of war and age.

Up from here the view is breathtaking, the river Neckar down there.

Look how part of the tower have fallen down, is it really safe to walk here ?

Another view, we now see the old bridge and the old main gate to the city.

Some memory plate from 21 January 1681 when they were shot by a kugel kugel, a very big canon ball. Hi tech weapon from that era.

Many parts of the castle only have the walls left.

To the right the moat that surrounding the castle.

The entrance to the castle, to enter here we use the tickets we got when we bought the tickets for the cable car. The man who check the tickets try to rip it apart, no no I said, we must have it to get down again if we don't want to walk.

The yard in front of the castle. It's only May and not so many people here, good for us.

Here is a pharmacy museum, we only look into the door, not so interesting for us.

This is much more interesting, the gate out to the balcony with the famous view.

The river's dam and its lock, we see many river ferries but no one that pass through the lock.

Maybe they once had guards here looking for enemies.

We sat down on the bench and enjoy the view and looking at all the people that take selfies here.

Next part of the castle to investigate, the wine cellar, we have seen a lot of YouTube movies from here.

Gunilla found the wine barrel tap immediately, but hey, it's empty !

In another room we found an even bigger wine barrel, big enough to use as a room. But why is it so big ? Isn't better to have many small ones, all crap inside couldn't be good.

After finished the inside of the castle we walk towards the gate, here is the castle's well.

The tower above the gate.

The big door has a smaller one for the short people, very short ones.

When we leave the castle we walk to the other end where the famous partially collapsed tower is. I think this was made by only one canon ball from the attacking enimies.

A view from the outside of the moat.

To come down to the city once again we took the way through the moat, here we climb down the stairs.

A well that they have built a small house around.

Rippling water comes out here, at least it did once.

Downside of the castle, we see a lot of reinforcement they have made to the defense wall.

Outside of the castle is the castle park, we never went all the way to it.

It's steep down here and a bit slippery, we see the old town down there.

Ouh ... where is he ?

Don't mess with me he looks to say.

Down in the outermost part of old town, a collection of color full scooters.

Heidelberg Main Gate:

Now we go to the old bridge to have a look at the main gate of the city. Behind the gate, the bridge to the other side of the river.

Old Bridge of Heidelberg:

The bridge is very beautiful, on the tower there is markings after how high the water has reached. The one from 18th is almost all the way up.

River Neckar:

We stood here and discuss about if we should walk over to the other side of the river. But we have already walked a lot today so we found it better to walk into the town again and sat down at some cafe or restaurant.

Heidelberg Marstall:

It's here the students have there restaurant, into the yard and left. We visited it later and it was a very nice place.

At another place I order a milkshake, but where are the strawberries I saw on the menu ? It's just decorations on the menu the waitress said.

Peterskirche:

Peterskirche, it wasn't far away from our hotel. It's evening now and we need something to eat.

Witch Tower:

On the way down to the restaurant street we found this, the Witch tower. Here they executed the poor ladies that was accused to be a witch.

Jesuitenkirche:

Jesuitenkirche, these are the student blocks in town.

An impressive facade of the church.

One of many beautiful houses we walked by.

Back to Heidelberg Marktplatz where we started the day, here we found a restaurant that pleased us. A wonderful pizza, Quattro cheeses to share, meantime we listen to Sade. We often shears a plate and then we can eaten twice as often.