Friday, 30 April – Heidelberg

Well, we made some good progress in being able to do the Blog through Blue Tooth. We got a Blue Tooth keyboard and were able to send image files to the Pad with Blue Tooth file transfer. So back in the Blog writing fray again.

Our first adventure of the day is to go to Heidelberg Castle which apparently is the number 1 attraction in Heidelberg. There were lots of folk up there this day. We head out in the morning and it is still quite cold. This time I am better rugged up with 4 layers including two hoodies so don’t feel the cold quite so much. It is a short walk to the entry point for the Castle – the Finicula Station.

We grab a seat in the last cart so we can have a better view looking down the hill. It is a relatively short ride to the Castle, there is another stop further up the hill but we did not try it out. Into the Castle grounds which are massive.

One of the features of the Heidelberg Castle is the worlds largest functioning wine barrel, although no longer function. We enter the main part of the Castle.

After that we went to a nearby Museum, yes Peter, a Pharmacists Museum. As usual not really my style, but one photo.

We exit the Castle and catch the Finicula down to the flat land. At the station we catch a bus, aided by a nice German couple, and ride it into the City proper. We find a large electronics store which has three floors and we go to the top floor. The object is to get a Blue Tooth keyboard to use with the Tablet. We find one with a German keyboard layout. Actually it is the labeling of the keys that is different, the layout remains the same. The Y and the Z are interchanged and many of the punctuation keys, the latter which takes getting used to. Any way, the keyboard makes it much easier to type into the Blog.

We exit into a long mall. Julie seems to have a destination in mind and surre enough, wait for it, it is a Salmon shop. Following are photos taken by JV.

Any way, enough of that fishy stuff. I go further down the mall and find a deli serving hot Pork dishes. I get a nice roast pork roll, no picture sorry. The meat is pinkish more like Ham but there is a bit of crackling. I sit and eat it at a table in the sun in the mall, eventually joined by JV with her salmon roll.

After finishing eating, we head on down the mall for a relatively long walk back to the apartment. After all that walking around the Castle and then in the Mall, it is time for me to have a snooze. JV of course goes out prancing, this time for quite a while, not back until after 7:30 pm.

We decide that we would like dinner so head off into the market areas. Lots of places are quite crowded with waiting lists because the sun is going down and it is becoming quite cool. I suggest that we try a place we saw the other day opposite the Hamburger shop, down a side street. When we get there, it is quite crowded but we get a table which happens to be next to a nice American couple, younger than us.

Not knowing anything about German wine, I asked them about the wine they were drinking as it was also recommended by the waitress. The couple organised through the waitress for a glass and we had a taste of theirs and decided to order that wine, good enough. Then the food started coming.

The food was good, the wine OK, the couple very easy to talk to. All in all a good night. We wandered back to the apartment where I eventually crashed and slept pretty well.