Castles and funiculars and gummi bears, oh my!

Photos are here!

Well, I was going to lie down for a bit after getting home, but Mr. Saxophone downstairs has decided to practice, so...

The day started off with the traditional mad rush for the train - for myself and Z anyway, C was there in good time. We all piled on and then found our seats, changed at Mannheim and from there on to Heidelberg. Most of the journey was spent listening to or talking about each others' music.

We got to the station, went and got our 'Heidelberg Cards' which - if you get the two-day ones instead of the one-day ones - give you free use of the funicular railway, free entrance to the castle and the Pharmacy Museum, and lots of discounts in other places. Out at the front of the tourist office we got a 4-person day pass for public transport to cover the three of us, and off we went!

Unfortunately, we went the wrong way. After about 10 minutes on the bus, we figured out that we were not going towards the city centre. The timetables do that annoying thing of listing all stops instead of just the ones the bus is going to in the relevant direction. We jumped off and raced for the bus across the road - thankfully German cars do stop at crossings. A little later we went past the main transport hub - which is nowhere near the station - and then piled off at the funicular terminal.

We ran up to the gates and popped our two-day tickets in, laughing at the huge queue of primary children barely kept under control by parents. Until we realised that although the two-day passes might entitle us to free use of the funicular, they weren't actually tickets. In the queue we got to get our free tickets.

Although we stood near the front window, there was a huge panel behind the driver which meant we could see next to nothing - it didn't matter that much as we were soon whisked up to the castle (which is only a 10 minute walk up the hill). A short stroll up a cobbled slope later, we were inside the castle grounds - I'll leave that to the photos! The guided tour was interesting, but I found it hard to keep my mind on it. Not sure if it was the guide's French accent or just an attack of tiredness. The World Cup has been rough in terms of getting much sleep, as the Germans (and pretty much everyone else here, such as the Turks) tend to stay at home and roar at the TV, followed by driving around sounding their horns. They were more subdued after their defeat last night.

We dived into the Pharmacy Museum, which was interesting for free and had some fantastic cards in the gift shop, and then stopped for a coffee before heading back to the funicular - stopping again briefly for C to buy a hat. We just need a feather for it now. One stop up and we got out of the lower (new) funicular and transferred to the upper (historical) funicular. Apart from the whole being-a-funicular (you all know about my fascination with them by now, as well as cable cars, and trams, and ferris wheels) it hit a 40% gradient at the end. It was like going up a rocket launch track. We stopped to admire the view, failed to get any food and then headed back down again.

Once back down from 500ft above sea level, we crossed the old town through the old market square to the river bank, across the old bridge and over to my must-see item - the Philosophers' Walk! Yes, anything for a gag - in this case contrasting it with the Path of Philosophy in Kyoto (which Dad has the most amazing postcard-worthy pictures of with cherry trees in full bloom). We started up the winding cobbled path, walled on both sides, as it snaked its way up the steep hill. Now, I had made a bad choice that morning in wearing my MBTs, which are the most comfortable walking shoes I've ever had, but are utterly useless verging on dangerous if the ground is uneven or sloped. And this was a lot of both. After we'd got to the point where we were level with the castle on the other side of the river, and realised we were still directly over the old bridge and therefore possibly not actually on the Walk at all, we took photos and headed back down. I'll try again when I've worked on my cardio. And have different shoes on.

After that we headed back across the bridge and into the cobbled streets around the market square, stopping for dinner at a nice place with outside tables. I had some delicious pork in a cream and mushroom sauce - a little heavy on the white wine. It came with something called spargel (not sure about the spelling) which initially looked like noodles but I think may have been shredded fried cheese. I mostly left it alone.

I dragged the guys back along the road to a shop with a gummi bear logo that we'd passed while we were wandering around. We only just got in before they closed, but it was worth it! There were endless flavours of gummi bears, old favourites like marshmallow strawberries and even playboy/playgirl jellies! I got a mixed pack of sample sizes for the team and a big bag of coffee-flavoured jellies for me. (I later repented and brought them into work for my project team...) Fully stocked on sugar, we went back to the bus stop and back to the station for our train.

We were ticket-checked on every train, by plain-clothes inspectors on the first train on the way back - they also had the police meet them at the terminus to discuss something with a young man in our car. I still can't get used to the police being armed here. We checked out the bookshop with English books in the train station and then went our separate ways. C later found out that the gummi bear shop has a branch in Frankurt, so we're doomed.

The adventure for today was heading down to the Japanese bookshop at lunchtime to see if we could get anything interesting in their pre-closing-for-refurbishment sale - I didn't in the end, as nothing discounted was that interesting (I already have plenty of reading material I haven't read yet) and anything that was interesting was too expensive and could wait until I got to Japan.

I am horribly tired. It was a battle to even keep my eyes open at some points today, despite coffee, diet coke and coffee gummis (aka sugar). I think I will be hitting the mattress early tonight, neighbours willing.