Heidelberg, Germany

So far, I think this is my favorite place in all of Germany! Heidelberg Castle looks over the city of Heidelberg, and offers amazing views...

We arrived in Heidelberg late, very tired, and ready to find any hotel we could find. We arrived at Ibis just on the outskirts of the city center which once again would have been a great place to stay. However if you're tired, you're tired. Awoke in the morning ready to explore the city after a little breakfast.

We drove towards the "schloss" or "castle" and found it no problem. We hiked up some stairs and arrived at the ticket office overlooking the grounds. Quite expansive, but nothing like Versailles... quite a bit smaller, however we learned during the tour that the gardens here were so beautiful that they were considered one of the "Wonders" of the world... Now the grounds are grass and dotted with huge beautiful trees. We walked the grounds and took some photos of the view, seen below:

The castle had fallen to ruins but still maintained some of it's character due the help of one lone Frenchman who saw this place and it's history of importance. The locals here had used the stone to build their own houses, so it was kind of a free for all at one point. The areas that were "untouched" were amazing. However even the areas that were destroyed or partially destroyed held some character all their own. See below:

The inside was interesting, showing off some traditional architecture and in particular a room that served as their church and where they prayed... Up high was a glassed private room that you could sort of see into, and the king would sit up there, or not sit up there. When he was too busy to sit up high and intimidate his subjects, he would have someone where a white wig like his own to make people believe he was there. Attached to that glassed off room was a small staircase that led into the wine cellar, so we can all imagine where he was when he wasn't in church... The wine cellar was AWESOME! It didn't hold bottles, but were two large barrels. One of which could hold some 220,000 liters of wine. To the royalty of the castle, it wasn't what type of wine, but how much of it you had. They would just dump all the different types of wine into the barrels and drink whatever came out. I imagine it was a violent wine cocktail, but after two or three glasses, it wouldn't matter what it was. :-)

This is the smaller of the two wine barrels - this one was about 3 or 4 times by height easy... The other was so large, the pictures came out horrible. It required a stair case to maneuver around and above it...

After the tour we headed into the town square and walked around a bit, until we sat for some coffee and beer (yummy) and enjoyed people watching. I love the culture here. People just sit and talk for hours over coffee/beer/ice cream (yes ice cream is everywhere) and there is very little rush for most. I enjoyed the beer here. I didn't drink a ton of it, but enough to get my fill. The weizen beers were my favorite. In fact, Claudia liked one of them too... and she can't stand beer!

We then left and headed for Baden Baden to sleep for the night. The drive from Heidelberg to Baden Baden was gorgeous too. Castles and towns dotted the hill sides and we enjoyed the drive tremendously. Arriving in Baden Baden was not what I expected. It is a spa/resort town complete with casino. Great for relaxing, eating, spa treatments, and shopping! It is situated at the top of the Northern Black Forest... We arrived at a small hotel that was fantastic. We enjoyed the hotel staff, the room, the breakfast... I would stay there again and spend a few days in Baden Baden for sure...

However we were headed for the Black Forest... So after a good night of rest, it was time for the Black Forest!