Well, it is Cinco de Maio but we are nowhere near Mexico. Out main activity of the day is a walking tour around Bucharest. We start with the Hotel breakfast which is a typical buffet with one extra special for someone.
Smoked salmon, of course
We are joined at the hotel by our guide, Alexandra, who proves to really know her stuff. We are not far out of the hotel where we see one of the most important aspects of Romania.
Statue of Wlad the Impaler AKA Dracula
I won’t go into Dracula’s story here e.g. the Ups, Downs, Ups and very Downs, he was eventually beheaded – Google it. Suffice to say he is considered a Romanian / Transylvanian hero. After that we wander a bit and then Julie disappears into shops, twice, I hate shops. I thought ot myself I am paying money to be tortured, but things improved after that.
There were sex shops all over Bucharest
We learned a lot about the Communist rule in Romania, the brutal rule of Ceausescu, the Romanian Revolution which was the only violent removeal of a Communist Government, the eventual removal of Ceausescu and his wife, who seemed to be worse in many ways, by court and firing squad in 1989.
One of the heroes of the revolution and an artwork statue of a number of others
This spot was one of the key areas of the revolution.
The GirlsThe Balcony from which Ceausescu made his infamous speechesThe PalaceThe “Potato on a Stick”A Mosque – amazing stories of whole buildings like churches being lifted out of their foundations and moved a distance awayWho is the angel???
But enough of this guff. Thie Blog is not a travelogue or a history channel. We take some back lanes and alleys.
Speakeasys are all the go
We had booked lunch at a famous beer hall.
Alexandra in the beerhall
We ordered wine and food.
The Vino – a ShirazBeef soup as a starter for meAlexandra’s SoupJulie’s Beet and HorseradishPork stew for Julie, sadly there was a lot of pork liver in itFried cheese for AlexandraVine leaves stuffed with Goose and Rice for meA Pork Knuckle at the next table
Anyway, it was time for me to crash which I subsequently did. Juile, of course, pranced around town. When she eventually came back she suggested we go to Bruno’s, Alexandra’s favourite Bar.
The street with lots of bars and restaurantsEntering BrunosAt the bar with the lovely young girl
We depart back to the Hotel, stopping at the cheese shop at which Julie had bought wine and pie yesterday. We are not really hungry but pick up a small snack for each:
This is really our only full day in this neck of the woods. Mainz is a modern city outside of Frankfurt. We had received an email overnight from our Airbnb host, Karim, Who suggested a great place for breakfast but also pointed out that there was a farmers market on in the city near “The Dome”. We find the breakfast place easily:
Recommended place
Sadly we were out “too early”, being 8:00 AM, things seem to start a bit later over here. So we depart and try to find the farmers market. Again we did that pretty easily. There were a large number of stalls in a lengthy mall type area as per below.
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:
The Heidelberg Breakfast Part 1
We eventually make a Mimosa or Bucks Fizz out of them. Plus:
Heidelberg Breakfast Part 2Julie and her coffee
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.
Julie entering the apartment.
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 Blue Corvette, sorry Prince, not RedA group of guys with sleds full of beer for their walk
She found an organic market along the way:
Asparagus Everywhereand I mean EverywhereAlong the River
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.
Julie in APITS
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 slawFeed the Man Meat! A big Pig’s KnuckleAll Julie could find was salad
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 helpJulie 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.
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.
The Finicula arrivingThe Finicula in 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.
Looking down to Heidelberg
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.
Worlds Largest Wine BarrelJulie walking down from the top of the wine barrelNext to 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.
In the Pharmacists MuseumTime to go, looking down to the river
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.
The Salmon Shop
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.
DucksThe River
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 couple ordered Snails for a starterEating the SnailsI ordered spicy Goulash with noodlesJulie ordered Salmon saladNote 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.
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 tablesExit to the old bridge
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.
Night view of our lunch place
We wander around the streets and find by accident a place at Julie had been told about – the Wein Atrium.
Sign to the entrance down belowDown the stairs to the Wine Atrium
It is basically just a wine shop with lots of quaint stuff inside.
The Counter is made of wine boxesStatue made of wine corksChair Made of Wine Corks
The shop owner proposed two wines for us which we bought. A Riesling and:
A very nice German Red
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.
