Mannheim and Heidelberg

I attempted to organise a flight to Bruxelles to visit Marene in Leuven post-oktoberfest. I couldn't actually get a flight from Munchen to Bruxelles - I blame this on the Oktoberfest crowd going from beer city to beer country. This resulted in me travelling in first class trains from Munchen to Mannheim where I also got to catch up with Anya and Tobias!

The sign on my ICE train denotimg my seat! I had a compartment within a carriage. I actually thought it was wrong when I got to the seat. I had to ask a business man, "Excuse me, sprechen sie inglisch?" and have him look at my ticket. I wish I took a photo of the compartment.

Anya and Tobi made me pretzels for breakfast!

I had heard that Mannheim is an ugly city completely devoid of nice things after being bombed to pieces. Anya was adamant there were some nice places and we ended up taking a night tour around the Water Tower and Schloss. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera to capture it for my faithful readers *pins dropping* but we returned the next day to get some daylight pictures.

Pretty!

Pretty!

You're so-so!

We also went to Heidelberg to be real tourists and walk around the cute streets and climb the steep hill to get to the old Schloss.

Cute streets.

This bear was promoting a new gummi bear shop, I think. All I know was that it deserved a hug.

In the square looking up at the castle.

The climb to the castle is apparently only 80 metres. It felt a lot longer and I think neither of us wanted to say we were puffed hehehe. We were able to stop at various points and look at the fraternity houses along the way.

The view of the path from the castle.

This is normally something I would do, but she did it so I didn't have to :D

View over the river from the castle.

Some of the walls.

Poor dog all tuckered out from the climb and looking at the ruins

The castle went through various stages of destruction and restoration and it's pretty much a ruin now although there are some items of interest in it.

Firstly, there's a museum of pharmacy.

Interesting but kinda random.

Anya also said there was a 'big barrel' inside.

Anya with a pretty big barrel. I was impressed with the size.

Turns out that this is REALLY the big barrel! It's HUGE!!! You can climb right over it and stand on a platform on top.

Back in town, posing with nice scenery in the background.

Mannheim and Heidelberg aren't very large so come 4pm and laden with a box of Ferrero Kusschen (Anya's faves and criminally not available in Australia!) some extra scharf chili-flavoured gummis (they're really scharf!), I boarded a train to Leuven!

These marzipan weisswursts and pretzel were for sale in the Mannheim hauptbahnhof. Looks so real, looks so delicious...