Heidelberg

Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012

This morning we went to church.  Stefanie was a mom in their play, Philipp was one of the 3 kings and Anna was an altar girl.  It was very interesting to be there, but hard to understand of course since it was in German.  You would think if they knew we were coming, they could have re-done the service in English.  Ha ha!  During communion, the priest seemed to drink a lot of the wine and Lainie and Brad had a laughing fit.  I am glad they didn't kick us out!

After lunch we drove to Heidelberg which is only about 40 minutes from here.  Another incredibly beautiful city!  It is on the Neckar River and some of the buildings look like palaces.  When we were almost there, I realized that I left my memory card for the camera in the computer!  I was very mad at Stefan because he should have reminded me to get it out.  (LOL!)  We didn't find any shop that sold them, but Stefan loaned me his since Anna had a camera, too.  Thank God, because I took about 100 pics!!

We took a train ride up to the Heidelberger Schloss (castle).

The views were incredible from up here!

The river is in the distance near the top

The castle grounds and buildings were equally gorgeous.  Some info on the castle from Wikipedia:
The earliest castle structure was built before AD 1214 and later expanded into 2 castles circa 1294; however, in 1537, a lightning-bolt destroyed the upper castle. The present structures had been expanded by 1650, before damage by later wars and fires. In 1764, another lightning-bolt destroyed some rebuilt sections.

Anna and Lainie

Anna, Lainie and Lea are on the left

The Stull girls....made for castle life.

We went inside and it is a bar.  There is a GIANT old wine barrel from the king and you can walk on top of it.

Lea and Philipp on top of the barrel

A narrow, spiral staircase down...Lea and Stefanie

More from outside:

Took the best Selfie with Lea, only to discover we were photobombed!  

Inside another part of the castle, there is a museum showcasing pharmacy stuff.  It was pretty cool:

Smelling some old time herbs used as remedies

Some very old containers...I took this one for Lainie's friend Piper, not sure what it is!

Unicorn?

I always knew it.

More outside shots:

Next we took the train back down the mountain.  We got the front car, it was kind of like a roller coaster ride!

Reminds me of the Hunger Games for some reason.

Next we went into Heidelberg.  It was getting late, about 4pm and dusk.  The pictures are a bit dark, but it was really a cool place.  We only saw a bit of it.  Much of it was pedestrian-only streets, which is nice.  It is pretty touristy but we like that anyway!  Very old, very beautiful city.

Schneeballen...a treat from Rothenburg!

Build a Bear Workshop?  Wow!

We would have loved to have had more time to spend here.  But the castle was tiring with many stairs and we had dinner reservations for 6pm back in Frankenthal, near Lambsheim.

The Schaefer's took us to their favorite Greek restaurant.  It was delicious!  We learned something very important.  Lemonade is not the same as in America.  It was a bitter lemon fizzy water with no sugar.  Lainie was unpleasantly surprised!  (It reminded us of the "pepperoni incident" 4 years ago.  Lainie and I ordered a pizza with pepperoni, which turned out to be banana peppers and NOT pepperoni!  This is now the "lemonade incident.")

Brad and Lea ordered Gyros, which is just the meat (pork here, not lamb) and no pita.

Lainie and I ordered the chicken schnitzel.  Not sure it was Greek, but it was very good!!

Lea was in a very silly mood

Silliness :)

We came home and hung out a bit, then went to bed.  It was a very busy but awesome day!!!