The next day Erik and I tried to get up early, I was thinking 10AMish, but we failed miserably. By 12AM, we had finally woken up and headed downtown for touring! We grabbed breakfast at a local Bäckerei(bakery), I had my first Dampfnudle(yeast dumpling?) They are delicious rolls, very soft and doughy, with a hardened baked bottom. I will get pictures sometime soon…
One thing to mention is the bakery. Bakeries are a staple of German life, they are more prevalent than Starbucks in America. Everyone has their “own” local bakery that bakes a different type of bread or has a different selection of breads. They are all over, whether you want a quick snack to grab and go, or if you want to sit, have some coffee and enjoy the paper. Every piece of bread you get is put into a paper bag and every bakery has their own unique paper bags. It’s very German.
We head downtown using the Straßenbahn(street train), basically an above ground subway car. They have train tracks on the street, so the car can go pretty much anywhere. They stop every few blocks, but you can get almost anywhere in the city pretty fast. I immediately head to a Deutsche Bank location when we get there. Deutsche Bank(DB) is one of the main banks in Germany, they have pretty extensive international partnerships. This is great for me because DB allows me to pull money from my American Bank of America account with no fees and gives me the best exchange rate! With money in my hand, we head off down the Fußgangerzone(walking zone).
Heidelberg has one of the longest Fußgangerzones in Germany, it takes about 45 minutes to fully walk it! At the end, is the main church for the city and some municipal buildings. A few more blocks after that is the way up to the castle! You can see the castle from anywhere, but just standing right under it is an amazing sight.
Erik and I walked up, it’s a steep walk but not that bad. Entry is about 3 Euro for students. We wandered around for a few hours inside, the inner courtyard for the castle is very nice. One of the most interesting things the castle holds is the largest barrel in the world! It can hold like 220,000 Liters, it’s HUGE! I don’t believe it’s ever been fully filled, but it’s a nice thing to have around.
We wandered around some more after this, went outside to the castle grounds. They really let you wander all over the castle, no one is really watching anything. Next, we headed back down into the city, to the Altebrücke(old bridge). It’s a really old bridge, it’s been around for hundreds of years. On the side of bridge is a list of marks from high floods, it’s crazy how high the water got sometimes, along with how long ago the the floods were.
After the bridge, it was getting late, so we headed home. Heidelberg is a beautiful city!
