Off to Heidelberg...

Still working on that time zone thing! Valerie and I went to bed at 8:30 pm last night and slept until 3:30 am - at which time we both woke up and were not able to sleep any more. We decided to get up and start moving around; we chose to take the Heidelberg Tour, called - scheduled it and was ready to go by 8:15 am. This was going to be a great day!

The tour took us up near the Neckar river to one of the most beautiful cities in Germany - Heidelberg. Heidelberg is known for it's world famous castle ruins, Gothic and Renaissance buildings and hosts the oldest university in Germany. In fact, there have been 5 Noble Prize winners from this university. While there, we toured the castle ruins and saw the largest wine barrel in the world. Our German, English speaking, tour guide, Robert Redford - as he called himself (but far from it!) actually had a sense of humor, not something I"ve seen in the Germans so far. He gave us Heidelberg history 101, and then some, from 9:30 - 3:00 pm today.

This is what you see when you first get there...beautiful! The castle ruins is a story of the evolution of a castle changing to a palace over 600 years. You'll also see that red limestone was the preferred building material for construction and it graduated from bricks to larger stones as time went on

Starting from the bottom of the castle foundation, there's actually three layers built during three different time periods. The reason for this is because there were three different rulers with different tastes in style; Renaissance, Baroque, and Romantic.

During the construction of this castle, they built a mote. Unfortunately, there was no water. And anyone knows...you build a mote because you have water. Duh???

As we move inside, you can see the Italian influence. This was one of my personal favorite places in the castle.

Here's Valerie as we go deeper into the castle - She's happy because the next thing we find is the...

....largest wine barrel in the world. It even had it's own protector! I guess it didn't matter that he was only around 4' tall - see him below. It was said that he believed he would die if he drank a glass of water...and guess what? ...that's what died from.

You can see Valerie wouldn't make a very good castle worker!

Catholic church

Protestant church

View of the Old Bridge on the Neckar river

In the streets of the old town 'Heidelberg'

Another view of the old town 'Heidelberg'

Valerie and Lisa getting ready to head back to Frankfurt.

Oh my gosh...by the time we got back to our hotel...were we ready for a nap, in fact, I even fell asleep on the bus (remember, I had been up since 3:30 am). We laid down and slept for almost an hour and then Valerie had to go to dinner with work colleagues to prepare for tomorrows meeting. I'm on my own to work on my blog and do a little Oracle work. I'll order room service and enjoy a quiet evening in our hotel called 'Innside'. Check this place out http://www.innside.de/_new/innside_premium_hotels/frankfurt_niederrad/fotogalerie.en.php4?music=-1&kalender=1

Ok...going to run. Talk with you tomorrow.