Day 6: 17/04/06 Heidelberg
A cherry tree shedding its petals: extremely impressive!
Schloss Heidelberg at night
View along the riverWe bid goodbye to Munich in the morning and we officially began our journey. Our first stop was Heidelberg, a city in Western Germany.
We were told by Hwee See that spring had already reached Heidelberg, and Tk, the flower hunter, was especially eager. We woke up rather late and took a late morning train. We bought our lunch at the same train-station sandwich stall we bought breakfast on our Fussen day. (Btw thanks Tk for the correction :) )
The train ride was rather uneventful. We passed by this beautiful hill city Stuttgart, of which Tk said the residents built the city on the hills by cutting into it, making terraces. We crossed the Danube at Ulm (and in fact our trip is north of the Danube only for 4 days), and at this time we were still extremely fascinated by rolling hills of green pastures and kept taking pictures. And the trees and cable posts were really a big nuisance.
When we reached Heidelberg, Tk took us upon the ULTIMATE route march. Our hostel was in the old city, and the train station was in the new city. Tk took out the map from his guide, and it seemed close enough on the map. After 15 minuets we found that the map was deceiving, as we were only about halfway to the juncture between the old city and the new city! The best thing was, Tk told us that the hostel was at 223 Hauptstrasse. Hauptstrasse was extremely long (now we knew that the distances on the map was truncated), and the map did not state what number the street started from. We hoped earnestly that it started from 200+ but, to our dismay, it started at No.1! In the end, when we reached the hostel, we were extremely shacked out; we walked for close to an hour with all our stuff on us!
The hostel was the kind that was attached to a pub; the reception (it could hardly be called reception; we nearly thought we had to walk again) at No.223 was the pub, and the rooms were at No.221. It was at EUR 20/night (almost the most expensive; without sheets and no bathroom in the room some more), nothing included; but the good thing was we were given a 6 bed dorm all to ourselves as there was no one else around (I wonder who would carry his stuff and walk for so long). We could hang things all over the place.
Heidelberg was a beautiful city; the old city was situated in the valley of Nektar, where the castle and the old university was situated. Lots of philosophers and literature masters had visited or stayed in Heidelberg before. Therefore in Heidelberg there is this 'Philosopher's Walk' in which the guidebooks said that famous people like Goethe, etc. used to stroll along and get themselves inspired. The path was on the hillside by the river and getting up there was another vigorous cardiovascular exercise. The 70cents Gelato (better than the Munich one I feel) we had before the climb did not help at all.
On the hillside there was quite some trees with flowers, making the whole hillside rather colourful. However, as the sun was weak, the brilliance was not there. At least the trees were green here.. We strolled along the path and enjoyed the scenery. We were able to see the whole of Heidelberg from the path; we even spotted a nuclear power plant far away on the new city's side.
We hunted for a good and cheap restaurant half the evening. We followed the guidebook and visited the recommendations one by one, and finally at a courtyard with one sole cherry blossom tree which kept shedding petals (it was an extremely spectacular sight! Imagine there was one whole row of cherry blossoms shedding at the same time... wow...) we found a restaurant not listed. The food was not bad, as we had rice (Tk enjoyed his spicy rice dish very much; the restaurant became the point of reference). I had Irish coffee too (which Yj didn't because he was traumatised by his very expensive plain water he ordered, and Tk chose his favourite almond coffee); it was a strange mix. Probably one might find it less strange when drunk with his lover, but, be rest assured the whiskey inside was not romantic at all.
We sat at the restaurant (by the way it was called Havana) till late; we had a long talk about religion and the meaning of religion to us. During the discussion Yj experienced his first combined attack from us by insisting on a point (it was a secular point; Tk and mine's was more pro-religion) that both of us could not agree using his confusing and incomprehensible arguments. Furthermore, he could continue to insist on putting his point forward with the SAME statement after we had rebutted it, making us feel that he had not understood or heard our arguments at all. Tk was almost going to give up on him. These situations happened numerous times during out trip and I would describe those more interesting ones (e.g. grandjunior/angel etc.)
We were told by Hwee See that spring had already reached Heidelberg, and Tk, the flower hunter, was especially eager. We woke up rather late and took a late morning train. We bought our lunch at the same train-station sandwich stall we bought breakfast on our Fussen day. (Btw thanks Tk for the correction :) )
The train ride was rather uneventful. We passed by this beautiful hill city Stuttgart, of which Tk said the residents built the city on the hills by cutting into it, making terraces. We crossed the Danube at Ulm (and in fact our trip is north of the Danube only for 4 days), and at this time we were still extremely fascinated by rolling hills of green pastures and kept taking pictures. And the trees and cable posts were really a big nuisance.
When we reached Heidelberg, Tk took us upon the ULTIMATE route march. Our hostel was in the old city, and the train station was in the new city. Tk took out the map from his guide, and it seemed close enough on the map. After 15 minuets we found that the map was deceiving, as we were only about halfway to the juncture between the old city and the new city! The best thing was, Tk told us that the hostel was at 223 Hauptstrasse. Hauptstrasse was extremely long (now we knew that the distances on the map was truncated), and the map did not state what number the street started from. We hoped earnestly that it started from 200+ but, to our dismay, it started at No.1! In the end, when we reached the hostel, we were extremely shacked out; we walked for close to an hour with all our stuff on us!
The hostel was the kind that was attached to a pub; the reception (it could hardly be called reception; we nearly thought we had to walk again) at No.223 was the pub, and the rooms were at No.221. It was at EUR 20/night (almost the most expensive; without sheets and no bathroom in the room some more), nothing included; but the good thing was we were given a 6 bed dorm all to ourselves as there was no one else around (I wonder who would carry his stuff and walk for so long). We could hang things all over the place.
Heidelberg was a beautiful city; the old city was situated in the valley of Nektar, where the castle and the old university was situated. Lots of philosophers and literature masters had visited or stayed in Heidelberg before. Therefore in Heidelberg there is this 'Philosopher's Walk' in which the guidebooks said that famous people like Goethe, etc. used to stroll along and get themselves inspired. The path was on the hillside by the river and getting up there was another vigorous cardiovascular exercise. The 70cents Gelato (better than the Munich one I feel) we had before the climb did not help at all.
On the hillside there was quite some trees with flowers, making the whole hillside rather colourful. However, as the sun was weak, the brilliance was not there. At least the trees were green here.. We strolled along the path and enjoyed the scenery. We were able to see the whole of Heidelberg from the path; we even spotted a nuclear power plant far away on the new city's side.
We hunted for a good and cheap restaurant half the evening. We followed the guidebook and visited the recommendations one by one, and finally at a courtyard with one sole cherry blossom tree which kept shedding petals (it was an extremely spectacular sight! Imagine there was one whole row of cherry blossoms shedding at the same time... wow...) we found a restaurant not listed. The food was not bad, as we had rice (Tk enjoyed his spicy rice dish very much; the restaurant became the point of reference). I had Irish coffee too (which Yj didn't because he was traumatised by his very expensive plain water he ordered, and Tk chose his favourite almond coffee); it was a strange mix. Probably one might find it less strange when drunk with his lover, but, be rest assured the whiskey inside was not romantic at all.
We sat at the restaurant (by the way it was called Havana) till late; we had a long talk about religion and the meaning of religion to us. During the discussion Yj experienced his first combined attack from us by insisting on a point (it was a secular point; Tk and mine's was more pro-religion) that both of us could not agree using his confusing and incomprehensible arguments. Furthermore, he could continue to insist on putting his point forward with the SAME statement after we had rebutted it, making us feel that he had not understood or heard our arguments at all. Tk was almost going to give up on him. These situations happened numerous times during out trip and I would describe those more interesting ones (e.g. grandjunior/angel etc.)
posted by Hiu Yeung at 21:29
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