Day 19 ~ Putting the High in Heidelberg

Today we got a casual start and didn’t launch into the day with a packed agenda. What would it be, Heidelberg?

Our first move was to head up to Heidelberg Castle, a castle that dates from the 13th century, but was destroyed over and over until sour-faced royalty stopped rebuilding it in 1764. This included destruction from getting struck by lightning, not once but twice! That. Is. So. Metal. It’s a ruined castle now, and the only castle we are likely to see on this trip. We’d seen it plenty from the town below, and it was time to explore.

On the way up, we went for Stef’s first-ever funicular ride. As these things go, it was maybe a little underwhelming, since it was in a tunnel the whole time and we couldn’t see anything. Still, you have to be pretty jaded to be unimpressed at traveling through the center of a mountain, so that’s always cool. Up top, the scale of this thing was immediately on display.

This castle’s had too much to drink:

This one’s for all the doctors in the house – we didn’t expect much from the apothekary museum, but it was just full of absolutely beautiful displays that showed the development of medications over time. Turns out it was humors the whole time.

We’d seen signs to “the large barrel” all around the castle, and they seemed to really want us to go, so we checked out the large barrel. When we got there, we were impressed by a very large barrel. I think it held Gatorade.

But wait! It’s a trick! This was only a preview for the really, really large barrel – yowza!

Irony aside, it’s unreal how big this thing is. We climbed up a fun spiral staircase and walked around on the structure up top. We will certainly never see a bigger barrel.

The views of the town from up at the castle were unforgettably beautiful; many pics were taken. They’ve got an HOA with an iron fist to get the houses this picturesque.

We weren’t sure if we should take the funicular back, or walk down through the town. The way through the town looked super-neat – there were massive and fascinating buildings along the hillside that would have been manor houses in their own right, and we’d love to check them out. So down the stairs we went. And we were not sorry.

We made the dubious choice to skip lunch to make our way to our next destination: The Philosopher’s Way. This was a path we’d tried to get to yesterday, but approached from the wrong end, then went up a misleading and ultimately disappointing staircase, but today we’d learned our lessons and did it right. We took a bus to the west end of town, and were happy to get a chance to see the Neuewenheim neighborhood – it has new in the name, but it sure looked old to us. We loved seeing it – it was like Old Town without the tourists, and with some city flair woven in.

It was a steep uphill climb through some of Heidelberg’s most expensive real estate, then we were above the city on the Philosopher’s Way. The views were completely commanding and worth all of our considerable sweating on this hot September day.

in the pic below, of course that’s the castle in the middle, up the hill just a bit above the town. It was so cool to see the castle from this completely different angle. Devotees of our pictures will recognize the Old Bridge and its white turrets, steps from our hotel, and dead in the center is the first church we visited yesterday, which we both liked so much.

We enjoyed this walk a long time, and finally headed down when we had arrived at the meaning of existence. It’s love, and schnitzel. We had a few routes down but chose this stairway mostly on a whim. We ended up loving it, and it took us straight by some famous sheep we’d seen on YouTube, and straight across the Old Bridge. It was whimsical and felt charmingly historic.

Speaking of schnitzel, we were ready for an epic feast, and had our second giant German meal of the trip. It didn’t top yesterday’s, but that was one of the best meals we’d ever had, so that’s a tough bar. We left satisfied.

After some time cooling down in the hotel room, we wanted to see a little Heidelberg nightlife. So we stayed out until 8:15. I know, party animals. Still, we got some apple strudel. We also walked down this lively street at night, which we had enjoyed in the daytime but really comes into its own after dark.

Then a walk up the Old Bridge to see the castle lit up at night. Did not disappoint.

We had seen Heidelberg from high in the castle, and high on the Philosopher’s Way. We’d seen the castle up close, from way across the river, and at night.

And with that, we retired to prepare for our next adventure. Tomorrow: Basel, Switzerland.