Heidelburg

(written by Troy)

The train to Heidelburg was the nicest yet. Leave it to the Germans. It was an ICE (inter city express) Hi-Speed train with plush leather seats and glass doors that open before you even touch them. Well, first class is like that anyway. They even had a guy selling fresh warm pretzels instead of the usual person hauling his trolley of soda's stale snacks and ass coffee.

First stop after we arrived was the ticket office to make our reservations to Paris (good thing we did as we later found out the train was sold out!) and then to the Tourist Information office as we had no idea where our hotel was or how to get there.

A short bus ride and walk later and we were at our hotel at the foot of the old Bridge the Hollander Hof. (you can see our hotel, on a lot of the postcards of the old bridge. We were able to check in early, and this was another hotel which wanted us to leave the hotel key at the front desk when we left...weird) and then we headed out on our adventures.

We decided to check out the castle first. We took the funicular up, which probably wasn't totally necessary but we've been walking a ton in the last 3 weeks, so our feet could use the rest time.

In our haste we forgot that we were pretty hungry, having had only the pretzels from the train and a small pastry and coffee beforehand at the station that morning. We picked up some audio guides at the castle and wandered around the gardens a little bit and then grabbed some lunch at the self-serve cafe just outside the castle's main gate. Shara had some schnitzel (when in Germany...) and salad, and I had some more bratwurst and pommes frites. I also tried an unappetizingly named drink called "Lint" which turns out to be bubbly apple juice and not all that bad.

Then we toured through the old ruined castle which was pretty cool but they didn't let you wander anywhere fun inside the buildings, except for the giant beer keg.

After that, it was time for a nap.

Neither of us had done much "souvenir" shopping at all on the trip, but with the number of days we needed to carry our packs dwindling, now seemed like the time to start. We pretty much walked up one side of the old town's main street and then down the other side. There were a couple of really cool home stuff stores that had tons of neat stuff. One had an interesting table-top soccer thing, and Shara bought her "remember" memory game there and a music box for Vienna.

Fir dinner we stopped at the fun German restaurant. The sidewalk tables were full, but we got a table inside just by the window, across the street was a Korean restaurant that was totally empty. The waiter stood outside and kept coming across and talking to the patrons of our restaurant. He really should have moved his establishment next to the weird store that had everything from suvineers to watches to wine, and everything in between. In fact adding the restaurant as one more stop in the labyrinth of a store would probably ensure its success.

Back to our dinner, Shara ordered something yummy she saw on someone else's plate, chicken with mushroom sauce and spatzle, and I had some pork knuckle and spatzle. Our waiter was jolly and "cute" as Shara said it, and helpfully translated the specials of the day. He was also the only waiter on our whole trip to come and ask if everything was ok, although it was still hard to get the bill. He was also sweating profusely.

We got some ice-cream next door, and walked to our hotel Before heading in we walked across the bridge and checked out the castle bathed in glorious golden rays of sunlight. I would have grabbed the camera from the hotel, but the half of the castle that we could see was covered in scaffolding, as was the bridge.

We played a round of Shara's "remember" game, (Shara won) watched some CNN and then turned in.

The next morning we elected to forgo the 12 Euro/person breakfast at the hotel for some coffee and deliciously huge pastries for only 6 Euro total. We ate while standing around a fountain, (it was turned off). A little girl must have been hungry because she (probably 2 year old) walked over and stole some pretzels from a group that was having some sort of celebration while they were not looking. It was pretty funny.

We did some more walking around and picked up a few knick knacks. Heidelburg has a lot of bookstores! Then it was time to head to the train station to catch our train to Manheim, and then to Paris. We grabbed our bags at the hotel and went to our bus stop.

When we got on the bus, we could both swear it said bus # 32 on the front, somewhere along the line I noticed the LED sign now said "31". With some help from a local, we found that this bus was heading far from the station and we needed to get off, go down another street and catch the 34. Oh...and it only comes every 20 minutes. So we hop off and start hauling down the street. And there is the 34!! heading straight for our stop. I start hauling to catch it and manage to get there in time. I get on the bus and ask if it goes to the train station, and it doesn't. We need to go across the street. Luckily it arrives soon and we get to the station with time to spare.

Our next connection is pretty tight so we picked up some lunch at the bakery to eat on the next train. The connection is tighter than originally oped but we make the train to Paris with a minute or two to spare.

We were in another great ICE train (going up to 320km/hour in some places) to Paris in a compartment with a couple from Jacksonville FL. They were quite nice and we ended up talking to them the whole trip. She is an artist (R.N), and he is a Lawyer. I particularly liked how defending bad guys gave him no moral problems and that most of his clients are dumb people that did really stupid things. He just finished another degree at Cambridge and skipped graduation, and she was in Europe working on an Art Degree. They seemed to have an interesting relationship, bickering a bit in front of us. Shara noticed an absence of wedding rings.

We arrived in Paris Gare De L'Est all well and good, and then began our 2 hour trip to our hotel. First, long lines for the ticket machines. Then the ticket booths don't accept our credit cards. And they only take coins. Who carries 16 Euro 80 in coin? I went to wait in the lounge info line while Shara found someone else to help us. They suggested walking to Gare Du Nord (we needed to get there anyways and it was just 5 minutes away) We hoped to find an outgoing train to CDG, so we could use our rail passes and save the money of the RER train ticket. None of the people gave us any helpful information, they would not even look up anything in their computers. So we once again tried buying RER tickets at different machines (they had VISA logo's) and none of them worked. After this we were fed up, so we went in search of a cab.

Our driver was quite nice, even though he spoke zero English, and our French is not so good. The rates are cheap in Paris, the cars are nice. He even wore a nice suit! It was a good thing we took a cab, as our hotel wasn't exactly next to the terminal, and we never would have found it. After several tries, or Visa did work, and we bid our driver au revoir.

Novotel (the hotel) was quite nice and I'm sure the most recently constructed building we stayed in. As we were a little way from the terminal we asked about a shuttle for the morning. They do have a shuttle but the drivers are on a strike. Great, we booked another taxi.

One curious thing about our room is that you need to place the key card in a receptacle inside the door to activate the lights. This caused some initial panic as light was urgently required to find the toilet.

Our hotel had a pool, steam room, and sauna, so we took advantage of these in our first opportunity to break out our swimsuits. We went for dinner and bought some expensive but yummy burgers and club sandwiches. It was the first time we ate at 8pm and it felt normal (finally).

The swimming tired us out pretty good and time zones changes were soon to play havoc with our sleeping patters, so we did the final pack, and turned in for our last sleep in Europe.

On our last morning of our trip, we got ready pretty quickly and went down to wait for our taxi. Unfortunately he did not take visa, and I only had a small amount of cash. He said it might do if we hurry. He drove like a maniac, and stopped his meter for us for a few minutes. But he also took all our cash.

We arrived at th airport quite well in advance of our flight, so there were no line-ups to check in or at security.

Thankfully the pastry shop and Relay, (which had an airline headphone adapter) and the duty free shop all took visa, so we could have breakfast, buy treats for the plane and get some last minute souvenirs. The plane was a little late (they forgot the food), but according to the first officer, "they are going to try and make up that time in the air". What's up with that? If they have the ability go to go faster, why don't they always go faster, and get us to our destination sooner??!!

We are on the plane now, and about to land in an hour or so. It has been a wonderful trip, with lots of great memories. And most importantly I got to share it with my wife, and spend some much time with her!