Day 37

Heidelberg!!! That’s where we are today. We got to sleep in a little, but not much. We woke up around 7:15 to take showers and have a nice breakfast at our hostel. I had a nice big cup of coffee, 2 bowls of cereal, some toast with jelly on it and an apple. It was delicious. After we were finished, we headed out into the city. The sky looked blue and the sun was shining, kind of. We didn’t realize how far away we were from the center of the city until 30 minutes had passed since we left, and we still weren’t there! We were definitely taking the bus back. On our way to the center, we passed a restaurant that said “Gino’s Mexican Food.” Now, I’ve been crazing Mexican food for the longest time. In fact, when I get home that’s the first thing I’m going to eat. A nice big burrito. So once we saw this, we knew we were set for lunch. But that was a ways away. We continued walking and finally made it to the town hall. We went inside and bought our Heidelberg Card which would give us free transportation and entrance to the castle. But our first stop was the Karl’s Gate. It was your standard entry gate to a city. There was even a little man hole for the latecomers. After the gate we stopped by a little sandwich shop so Adam could grab some food. Plus it was cold outside so I used that time to warm up. After our mini break and some time to figure out our next move, we left the sandwich place and started walking towards the castle. Luckily our Heidelberg Card came with a round trip ride on the funicular railway car, because my feet did not want to climb all of the way up to the castle. We toured the grounds for a bit first. The view was pretty good, even though it was very very cold outside. We could see the whole city! It was really nice. We continued walking along the grounds to try and get some good pictures of the castle. After 20 minutes or so, our tour guide was ready to take us inside. We learned that the castle had been attacked several times over the course of it’s history, once by the French, once during the 30 years war and the last time by nature. Lightning struck one of the towers and burned down most of the castle. After that, it fell into ruins and only one part has ever been renovated. The inside of the renovated part was really nice. Because there was no record of what it looked like, the designers based it off of other castles built during that time. The furniture was all from the 1600s as well. It was pretty nice. After our tour we went downstairs to a very special room. This room contains the largest wine barrel in the world!! It can hold almost 22,000 liters! It’s been filled 3 times in it’s history. Sadly, there’s no wine in it now. After the wine barrel, we walked back upstairs to the Apothecary Museum. It was an entire area dedicated to the practice of medicine from the 1600s. There were so many different spices and herbs used as well as different medical instruments. There was so much information and so many different rooms that it was a little overwhelming. But it was interesting, nevertheless. We left the castle and headed back into the city. Our next stop was the Holy Ghost Church. And as luck would have it, they had a tower that we could climb. So we paid our 70 cents to ascend the tower. After 201 steps we were at the top looking out into the city. It was really nice. The weather had started to turn though and it was getting colder. We spent some time up there before decided that it was lunch time. And now we were on a search for our Mexican restaurant. After 20 minutes of walking up and down the main street, we finally found it. But when we got inside, we were very disappointed. I don’t think “Gino” has ever been to Mexico because the food that was being served was most definitely not Mexican. I’m not even sure if it was food. After spending a few minutes trying to convince ourselves that we could eat it, we left very upset. We stopped at a grocery store to grab some snacks to hold us over until we made it back to the hostel. We left the store and walked over to the University. Heidelberg University is one of the best in all of Europe. With over 33,000 students, living in the city, it kind of feels like a college town. We went inside the library which was really nice. But it was just a library. We left the University area and started walking towards the Jesuit Church. The inside of it was beautiful. It was all white, which is a difference from so many of the other churches we’ve seen. It was also pretty big. We left the church for the last leg of our journey. We walked across the Alte Brucke (Old Bridge) and the Neckar River to walk up Philosopher’s Way. We didn’t make it all of the way to the top, but we did get a pretty good view of the city. It was really nice. And really cold still. But we took a bunch of pictures and spent a good bit of time there. After we were done, we walked back down to the city and caught a bus to our hostel. We arrived back at the hostel, which is on the 3rd floor of a building, but stopped at the 1st floor first to take a look inside the grocery store. While I was trying to find something to eat, I noticed a familiar brand out of the corner of my eye. My salad from the other day was there!! And that’s what I got. I’ll have to keep my eye out for more of them in Munich. We went upstairs to eat and go on our computers for a bit. After some relaxation time, we went into the kitchen for the remainder of the night. We met a group of really cool people and spent a good portion of the night talking hanging out. One of the staff members was even celebrating her birthday so there was some cake involved. One of the guys we met upstairs turned out to be from Irvine. How crazy! We even met someone from Finland. It was a lot of fun, but we ended up calling it an early night so we would be ready for our 5:45 wake up call. Overall, it was a really good day. I can’t believe we’re going back to Munich tomorrow. Less than 5 days left!