Europe 2016 – Page 7 – Beauperi Investments

Posted on May 3, 2016May 5, 2016 by beauperi · 1 Comment

Good bye Heidelberg, Hello Mainz

Monday, 2 May, 2016 – Heidelberg to Mainz

Well, it is time to say goodbye to Heidelberg. The following are a few photos of Ciaran’s apartment as we are ready to go.

We really liked Ciaran and his apartment and gave it a very high Airbnb rating.

We need to catch the train to Mainz around 12:45 and, because the weather is again stunning, we decide to leave the apartment early and go have brunch up at the Bakery which is just opposite the Taxi stand so headed up there with our suitcases. Two things went wrong (1) The Bakery is closed on Mondays (2) No taxis came to the stand. Eventually Julie goes into another shop which kindly calls a taxi for us which comes by shortly and we make the trip to the train station with plenty of time to spare.

There are some ordinaary food stands within the station, we should have gone outside where there was better choice. I got a croissant with a crappy sausage in it while Julie went to a juice stand and got some fruit salad smoothie combination.

Eventually the train comes and although crowded I manage to get us two seats while Julie stows the suitcases. We have a train change and as there is a bit of time I go try to find a loo. There is one but I walk right by it since it does not have a norml labelling. I get back to the train just in time, Julie was panicking because I was so late but I made it. It is crowded at the start, I get one of the last seats and Julie stays up above with the suitcases.

A pleasant enough trip with the train eventually crossing the Rhine which is a magnificent river. There is an electronic sign which shows the next station but it is typically one station behind so I don’t know when we have reached Mainz until Julie calls out to me.

We proceed through the station and Karim, our Airbnb host, is there waiting for us. Karim is young, vibrant, outgoing and very friendly. It is about a 20 minute walk, at my pace anyway, to the apartment and Karim puts my suitcase on his bike so I don’t have to lug it on the walk.

The building in which the apartment resides is not very special but boy the apartment is! Apparently, Karim had completely remodeled it himself to be very modern. Large in size, just like the photos on Airbnb. Further, Karim is a great host having provided fresh flowers, a bowl of fresh fruit, (Julie’s favourite) and some German beer in the fridge. He explains lots of info about the apartment, the area etc while he has a map on his Airbnb page showing highlights in the area including bars, restaurants, shops, etc.

After Karim left, Julie went out prancing to learn the area. I unpacked the suitcase a little bit, did Blog work, sat out on the balcony, had a nap, all the important things. When she returned, we decide to have a drink. She opens a 2004 Rioja that we had picked up in Heidelberg, cork was very difficut, falling apart, but the wine was OK. Julie also opened a Riesling that we had bought from the wine atrium in Heidelberg. It was quite nice.

We go with our wine onto the balcony and start searching through Karim’s locality map to find a place for tonight. We settle on Laurenz which is a wine bar with “good food”. We take off to it, around a 20 minute walk but Julie guides directly there.

There are tables available outside and we are shown to one by a very helpful waitress. We asked about German reds and after some discussion she goes away and comes back with two glasses of reds to taste. We select one and it is a good choice. She also brings us an English menu.

Julie is initially very grumpy because she had not had a lot to eat that day and was quite hungry. She did not want tapas, which is what the menu looked like. Again the waitress was quite helpful and we ordered.

The Waitresses start bringing our food, in two lots.

I did not finish the broth but Julie lapped it up claiming I had left the best part behind. Main courses arrived and what treats they were. I had ordered loin of veal but they had run out so there was a replacement.

Julie loved her marrow and also the green sorrel sauce on my boar. The cheesy thing was interesting. So after initial reluctance with the menu, we agreed that this might be the culinary highlight of the trip. Thanks, Karim.

We walk back a different way seeing a few restaurants along the way. Back at the apartment, I finish the Rioja and fall asleep in the chair, how unusual while Julie went to bed. Another day tomorrow.

BTW: does anybody recognise anything unusual about this Post? Yes, there is no mention of Salmon at all. ~~In fact there are none of the usual Tags~~Oops, I needed to add a Tag

Posted on May 2, 2016May 3, 2016 by beauperi · 1 Comment

May Day, May Day

Sunday, 1 May, 2016 – Heidelberg

No, this is not a cry of distress nor is it a revolution / parade. In fact, 1 May is an absolutely delightful day. We had discussed yesterday about options such as a trip up or down the river or maybe a long rail trip to/from Baden Baden, but decided to go with the principle of relaxation.

We started out by going up to the bakery at the end of the street. Lots of reviews of Ciaran’s place on Airbnb talked about it so we decided to give it a go.

Inside where there were lots of (mostly very sweet) impressive cakes and pastries

Out to the side of the bakery were a number of tables set up in the beautiful sunlight. We grabbed one and stayed for over two hours.

Empty Tables - they did not stay empty for long as crowds of people showed up waiting for table — Empty Tables – they did not stay empty for long as crowds of people showed up waiting for table

I was trying to show the massive sweet cakes on the next table but they can’t be made out. We order coffees and then decide we will stay put for quite a while, the sun is wonderful. I order some soup from the menu.

Goulash Soup - not the best ever but OK — Goulash Soup – not the best ever but OK

Mean while, Julie decides she would like to eat too so goes down to the apartment and grabs e restof her smoked salmon in the fridge. She comes back and orders another coffee and a croiscant into which goes the salmon. I tried to take a photo of it but failed. After a while, we decided to order some wine:

Rose - not the best ever but OK — Rose – not the best ever but OK

We stayed until around 12:30 before going back to the apartment. I have a nap and work on this Blog while Julie prances around.

Julie returns around 4:00 and we decide to head out pretty much straight away for more sunshine and an early dinner. We go the opposite way to where we normally go but did not find anything suitable. We found the up market place but it was booked out for the evening. So we returned back to the market area and noted that virtually all the seats in the sun were taken. We carried on a bit further and found a place that had a suitable menu AND one of the 4 tables outside in the sun became available so we grabbed it.

We order wine, limited selection but we picked a reasonable Tempranillo.

I ordered the Turkey Steak with pepper sauce. While Julie ordered a smoked salmon baguette to which she was going order a side salad. However, my dish came with a small salad, NOT, which I passed onto Julie.

Julie’s baguette arrives and it is loaded with salmon and salad.

The bread is too tough for her, but she converts the rest of the ingredients into a massive salmon salad. A highlight, really. Fur mich:

Turkey steak and pepper (capsicum) sauce and Hash browns

To mine, the hash browns were the best on the plate. I suggest that Julie have an Irish Coffee but, No, and we head back to the apartment. We have to depart tomorrow, sad as that seems.

Posted on May 1, 2016 by beauperi · 1 Comment

A Day of Relaxation, for some any way

Saturday, 30 April, 2016 – Heidelberg

The original intention about starting in a relatively small town like Heidelberg was to do next to nothing to wind down and charge the batteries. Today we make a bit of an effort at it.

A bit of a sleep in after being up a few times in the night. We decide to go out for coffee some where. We wander for a while and there is nothing really satisfactory, things are quiet on Saturday morning. It is still quite cool which makes the walk a little uncomfortable. Eventually we duck into a Hotel restaurant and are the first customers of the day.

After consideration, Julie just orders a large coffee and I order:

We eventually make a Mimosa or Bucks Fizz out of them. Plus:

In fact, Julie ordered another coffee and an orange juice which was fresh squeezed, can’t beat that. Then she decides to go down to the Salmon shop to grab another salmon roll. It apparently does not open on Saturdays until after 11:00 but she is able to get something just after 9:00. We go back to the apartment. We swing around behind it and then down to the river with not much to see.

The two large windows you see are our loungeroom and bedroom. There are two large rooms, a loo and a hallway behind these. You can see that Ciaran’s apartment is of generous size.

Julie eating her Salmon roll out in the patio of the apartment.

I have a relaxing afternoon, possibly with 2-3 naps while Julie prances around. Her main effort is in the famous Philospohers Walk. Maybe 10-15 kilometers. Some photos along the way:

A group of guys with sleds full of beer for their walk

She found an organic market along the way:

Julie comes back around 5:00 and suggests that we immediately head out to get a drink in the sun. Sounds like a great idea. We go out to the main market area where there are a lots of tables but the competition for a Keith Dunstan was fierce (sorry to most of the readers but Keith wrote an article in one of our newspapers called APITS – A Place in the Sun – for many years). We have found a nice table and settle in for the odd casual drink.

We decide, as the sun slips behind the huge cathedral, that we had better find a place to eat before the hordes overwhelm. We pick a place, Palmbrun Gasse, which we had stopped by a couple of days ago, It is very much a MMMMMeeeeeeaaaaatttt place, which is not exactly suited to JV. Neverthessless, we settle in. We are in a good spot, but there is an open window and five girls are out smoking harder than Nero’s burning Rome, after complaints they shut the window which helps a lot.

We order our meals, which is hard for Julie as there is no Davy Jones stuff available.

A complementary appetiser of a very tangy cole slaw

Feed the Man Meat! A big Pig's Knuckle — Feed the Man Meat! A big Pig’s Knuckle

The Pork was good with some nice crackling. The meat was tender enough that Julie could have some with her salad.

Served with fried potatoes; our red in the background. Just OK, but it was a Heidelberg wine.

The spoils - could not fit it all in, even with help — The spoils – could not fit it all in, even with help

Julie went for an Irish Coffee variation

Well, that was it and we hit the apartment and then the sack relatively earlier. I slept through until about 2:30 AM and got up starting to work on Blue Tooth file transfer to solve our problem about how to get files from the Phone to the Tablet. Julie got up a bit later and we worked it out, hence not giving up on the Blog that I had felt before. Back to bed and some decent sleeps.

Posted on May 1, 2016May 1, 2016 by beauperi

Back in the Fray Again; The Castle

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.

Julie walking down from the top of the wine barrel

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.

Note how a hash brown migrated to my plate.

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.

Posted on April 30, 2016May 2, 2016 by beauperi · 1 Comment

Baby, its cold outside

28 April, 2016 Frankfurt to Heidelberg

We depart from the FRA terminal and follow the signs to the rail terminals. They are confusing in that there seems to be at least 3 differnet options. Julie proceeds ahead and eventually finds a ticket office to book our path to Heidelberg. The next train does not takeoff for about an hour so we settle into the platform to wait.

MAJOR MISTAKE it is still 1 degree out there and there is a bit of a wind through the tracks as well. I do not really realise until later what I have put my body through. In essence, I have chilled my inner core such that I am shivering for much of the rest of the day. To make matters worse, the train is delayed for another 15 minutes. When the train does arrive, it is very crowded and when boarding there is a scramble for a seat. JV, who is looking after the baggage, gets a seat at the front of the carriage whereas I manage to find another. The trip to Mannheim is uneventful other than we arrive 15 minutes late expecting to miss our connection. Happily, the connection is also late and we manage to get on the next train. It too is crowded, but I manage to get a seat and shortly thereafter an Asian guy gives up his for Julie. We meet some nice people along the way that help us translate the German announcements and get off the train at Heidelberg main station.

We call Ciaran, who is our host from Airbnb, and decide to take a taxi to his place. JV disappears into a tourist bureau for an extended period and when she comes out we hop into a taxi and take the trip across to the old town, Altstadt, and arrive to find Ciaran waiting for us outside. He is a genuine nice guy and shows us into the apartment and tells us quite a bit about it and the old town around us including advice on restaurants etc. The apartment is exactly as pictured on Airbnb, clean, roomy I could easily live in it. After Ciaran leaves, we settle in and unpack the suitcases. Before long, JV departs prancing around the old town. I try to have a nap but am shivering too much to sleep. Ciaran had turned on the wall heaters before we arrived but they struggled with the cold as well. Finally, I ha a long, hot shower which helped matters quite a bit.

After about 3 hours of prancing, Julie returns and we head out into the old town to get something to eat. I added more clothing layers but it still is quite cold out except when in the sun. The old town is delightful with many old buildings and lots of restaurants, many of them having seats out in the sun in large courtyards. Probably is much of a tourist attraction but then, afterall, we are but tourists too.

The Market area with lots of restaurants and tables

After walking around for a while and looking for appropriate restaurants in the Sun, we settle on Joe Molese as we see a large hamburger on one of the tables. We have a spot in the sun which is nice when it is not behind a crowd. Turns out that at the time, Joe Molese was rated third best restaurant in Heidelberg, and best burger. However, there was a rumour of a change of owners and a deterioration. The next day it had dropped to 19 on Trip Advisor.

Julie at table outside restaurant with my burger and her Smoked Salmon

My burger was fine, with nice onion rings. A bit messy and too much to eat but filled the spot nicely.

We wander around the streets and find by accident a place at Julie had been told about – the Wein Atrium.

It is basically just a wine shop with lots of quaint stuff inside.

The shop owner proposed two wines for us which we bought. A Riesling and:

After the hot shower, the hot meal, the warm sun etc. I was just about feeling OK again with the chattering gone. I had a lovely afternoon nap. Then when Julie returned from her latest prance, she had bought me some more warm clothes which I have to say worked out well.

After the large lunch I did not feel like dinner so had a piece of toast while Julie had salmon etc.

Beauperi Investments – Wine Consulting

Category: Europe 2016

Good bye Heidelberg, Hello Mainz

May Day, May Day

A Day of Relaxation, for some any way

Back in the Fray Again; The Castle

Baby, its cold outside