Roll out the barrel

This morning we slowly woke up and enjoyed several cups of good Indian tea.  Ravi made breakfast and was as impressed with his cooking skills as the rest of us.  Indian scrambled eggs with spices, veggies and hot pepper – delicious.  After breakfast we slowly got ourselves moving and finally hopped in the car to Heidelberg.

 

Heidelberg is a beautiful town, not bombed during WWII and so in incredible condition.  The university there is the oldest one in the world and stretches to many parts of town.  The streets are medieval and narrow with many closed to traffic entirely.  It is a great place to walk.

 

Most prominent in Heidelberg is the castle on the hill.  It dates to the early middle ages and went through many different periods of building.  The castle is very large, a small town in itself with multiple gardens and places. Rather I should say that they are the remains of palaces as the French destroyed the castle fortifications, turrets and many palaces in the the 30 years war.  Afterwards it lay ruined and forgotten unless someone needed building stones in which case it was a convenient location to pick up materials. 

 

Sometime in the 19^th century it became the subject of romantic poetry and the town began to slowly work on preservation and restoration.  Today you can see three eras of protective walls surrounding it, ruined turrets, half-standing palaces and incredible fountains.  You can walk through the “stag garden” where wild deer were caught and kept for hunting parties in the castle grounds. 

 

WE took the tour of the castle and enjoyed the restored section of one palace very much as well as the original wine barrel.  The barrel was where local vintners had to deposit 10% of their wine as a tax.  It is large enough to hold 60,000 gallons of wine and was connected to he dining halls by a pump system.  I cannot imagine how this wine tasted as it would have been a mix of varieties from all over the region.  The barrel itself is incredible and hard to imagine full of wine – it is larger than some Lakeside cottages easily.

 

After a stroll around the grounds we found “Father Rhein” the sculpture and fountain.  The fountains were full of newts, dragonfly larvae and water boatmen. Very cool.  We strolled down the steep hill to town and found a table at a café for a snack of german-style (alsatian) pizza and beer (Crystal) radler (lemonade and beer – me) and Orangina (Bob). 

 

We headed back to Ravi and Ashwini’s for another fantastic Indian meal, wine and greatconversations about life in Germany and with Germans.  We are amused by many of the laws here such as apparently you cannot vacuum after 7 pm or on Sundays.  You cannot make noise after 10 pm, including dogs that cannot bark after that hour.  If you disrupt your neighbor with a party you must arrange for a hotel for them. 

 

Also, the homes near the elementary schools are the cheapest, the ones near graveyards are the most expensive.  Spouses often take vacation separate vacations to be “quiet” which also applies in kindergartens where there is a tunnel/cave area kids can go to be alone and think. And I thought Americans liked their space… although I knew we didn’t value quiet much I had no idea how much Germans do. Very interesting.

 

We took another walk to the gelato place and walked around the shops looking at the displays of clothes, jewelry, shoes, shoes, shoes and novelties.  Back home we all retired to a nice cool night for sleeping.  Tomorrow we are leaving Germany for Belgium and a visit with Eva.