Day 38

We woke up in Heidelberg this morning very early, 5:45 am. SO needless to say, we were both very tired. We managed to get ourselves dressed and to the train station on time to catch our ride to Tubingen. After a transfer and nearly 2 hours of train time, we arrived in the city. And I just have to say that I was thoroughly surprised. First, I wasn’t expecting it to be that cold, but everything was covered in frost and ice, even the flowers. And second, I wasn’t expecting it to be that beautiful. The sky was clear and the morning was crisp. And by crisp, I mean cold. We walked to the Munsterplatz and saw that there was a nice little market going on. We had already had our egg McMuffins and coffee, so we were set, but it was still cool to see. I need to find some markets to go to in California. We walked around the Munsterplatz for a bit and then started heading up towards the castle. We kept seeing more and more frost while we headed up, but no snow. I guess it was a one time deal. We made it to the castle and were happy to find that it was open, at least the grounds were. SO we walked around for a bit looking for the best vantage point to take some photos of the city. We walked all of the way around and found a good area. The grass looked frozen. We spent some time up there before heading down back to the city to the Neckar River. From there we continued taking pictures. Apparently it was feeding time for the ducks and pigeons because there was about 500 of them swarming. It wouldn't have been such a bad thing, but pigeons get startled very easily. And while one might not scare you, 500 scared pigeons flying towards you might. I made sure I was out of the line of fire when they came hurling towards us. After the near brush with death, we walked along the river to enjoy the city for a little bit longer before our train ride. Our next stop was Hechingen where we would catch a bus to the Hohenzollern Castle. We nearly missed our bus, but we caught it just in time. We were on our way to the castle! We arrived at the base and decided that taking the shuttle up was the best option. So we hopped on the shuttle and headed up to the castle. Once we arrived we had 45 minutes before our tour started, so we walked around the grounds looking for something to eat. We found a little food stand near the entrance and each got some french fries to hold us over until lunch time. They were very good. After walking around some more, our tour was finally ready to leave. But we should have realized that it was not going to be the most interesting guide when we received our English tour books. The tour was entirely in German, which wouldn't be terrible if it moved fast. But it didn't After an hour and a half of sitting and not understanding anything, we were finally able to escape. Even though the inside was nice, it tour almost ruined it. We continued to walk around the grounds to find some good views of the city, but our stomachs were grumbling. We stopped inside the castle restaurant for some nice bowls of potato and leek soup. It was very warm and tasty. We left the restaurant after warming up for a bit only to realize that we had close to 2 hours before our bus would arrive. What were we going to do for 2 hours!? Plus it was really cold outside. SO we walked around some more and tried to stay warm. We took our shuttle bus down after a bit and waited inside a souvenir shop to stay warm. After our 2 hour wait, the bus finally arrived and we were on our way to Stuttgart. Once we arrived, we were able to make a quick pit stop for food before our next train was scheduled to leave. I got a banana and toffee nut muffin. It hit the spot. We boarded our next train which would take us back to Munich for the rest of our trip. But about 30 minutes into the train ride, my stomach started hurting. I tried to ignore it and even sleep it off, but it didn't work. I spent the next hour sitting in my seat trying deal with the pain. But nothing worked. After another 30 minutes and a trip to the bathroom, all was better. Thankfully. I don't know what I would have done if I got the stomach flu or a bug. We arrive in Munich 20 minutes late but it was ok because we were there!! We walked to our hostel, typed up some blogs, uploaded some pictures, and got ready for bed. It was a busy day!