Germany: Heidelberg Castle

We arrived in Germany and were lucky to be able to stay in our friends' house rather than the hotel.  Not only did we have a kitchen, a crib, a bathtub, and toys for Michael, but they also left us a list of places to go and restaurants to eat in.  Not knowing how busy Robbie would be once work started, we wanted to try to knock stuff off the list right away.  We went to eat the first night in Kaiserslautern, a good-sized town near Ramstein Air Base.  We got there a few minutes before the restaurant opened and played around a little in a small plaza we found near the restaurant.

On our second day in Germany, we decided to drive down to see Heidelberg Castle.  We'd heard good things, the weather was good, and Robbie just had to go in to work to check in.  First, we stopped at a Mexican restaurant our friends recommended to get a little taste of home.  I think if we had eaten there in New Mexico, Arizona, or California, we wouldn't have liked it very much but since it had been 3 months since we had any Mexican food, it hit the spot. 

Michael was so funny--we sat down and they brought us some chips and salsa. He watched us each dip a chip in the salsa and eat it.  We gave him a chip and he picked it up and started reaching for the salsa. Robbie and I both grabbed to get the bowl away from him since he spills everything but he somehow got past both of us, dipped the corner of his chip in the salsa, and ate it.  He loved it! He was so cute dipping his chip, licking the salsa off, then reaching out to dip it again. The only time he spilled was when the waitress brought our food, and we both got a little distracted. Robbie and I were so impressed that he figured out exactly what he was supposed to do and acted like he's known how to eat chips and salsa forever.  It was cute.

After lunch we drove to Heidelberg.  The castle is huge. It makes our Ferrara castle look like a guest house.  It was situated up on a hill, so we had a bit of a climb to get up there. It was worth it.  The views were amazing and the castle itself was pretty impressive. 

It looked really cold and windy outside as we were driving, so we bundled Michael up.  It ended up not being too bad, but he looked so cute in all his winter gear!

This is one of my favorite parts of the castle.  There was a circular tower kind of thing, but a big piece of it had come apart and just fallen off.  I don't know if the picture really does it justice, but the piece that's laying diagonally with all the foliate growing on it  was once attached to the rest of the tower.

There was a really pretty courtyard with views of the city and the river below.  We walked around here and let Michael run a bit before heading inside.

Once inside the castle walls, there was another courtyard.  You had to go on special guided tours to go inside the castle, and Michael doesn't usually cooperate with that kind of thing, so we walked around and did what we could without going on the tour.

One of the coolest rooms had these giant wine barrels. We looked at the barrels, walked around a little bit, then Robbie and I tried a wine they had and Michael and I shared a German soft pretzel.

We went out to another balcony on the other side of the castle and got some more pictures of the city and views.

We had a few extra minutes before we had to head back home and I had seen the steeples of a couple of churches I wanted to go see before we left, so we headed back down the hill into town.  I was disappointed that one was closed and there were people doing some kind of filming in the other so we couldn't go in and look around in either of them.  It was fun to walk down the pedestrian street and see the shops and street performers.

Then we walked back to the car, took a couple more pictures of the castle in the late afternoon light, and headed home.

I wish I had more posts about Germany.  Robbie's schedule was great for going sightseeing, but the weather didn't cooperate with us. It was cold and rainy the entire time we were there.  I was especially disappointed to miss seeing Trier, the oldest city in Germany with a lot of Roman ruins.  We drove up there one day, but by the time we got there the rain was really coming down and we didn't want to drag Michael around in the cold.  We did make it to Saarbruken to go to a mall one day, then when our friends got back we split up for an indoor playground/shopping day. 

It was a fun trip. It was nice to be in a place where everyone spoke English again and we could get some of the foods we missed (Baskin Robbins! Stuffed crust pizza!). Michael and I did a little exploring in the town where we were staying, played in the park, and found a nice walking path.  The good thing about a two year European assignment is we'll have plenty of time to go back!